The Perils of Modernity
by QueenOfTheDreamers87
Summary: Victoria and Lord M are mysteriously transported from 1839 to 21st century London. Navigating the terrifying world of modern technology, morality, and past times, they have to find their way back to the world they've always known. Along the way, they find quite a bit of solace in one another. Vicbourne AU, Novel-length COMPLETE!
1. Chapter 1

"Reading, Your Majesty?"

Victoria looked up from the book she was examining, a treatise on morality from some dry old man, and she smiled. Lord Melbourne came sauntering rather casually into her library, and she shrugged as she rose.

"What better to do on a rainy day like this?" She held out her hand for him, and he immediately sank to one knee and kissed her skin. He was delicate and careful, just like always, and Victoria's heart raced. Just like always. As Melbourne rose, he smirked a little at her and said,

"I thought I might find you in here, Ma'am. I know you do like your solitude."

"I do not mind at all having it broken if you are the company, Lord M." Victoria smiled more broadly at him, feeling grateful that he had agreed to stay on as her prime minister. How she would go on without him, she'd had no idea at all. The conversation at Dover House where he'd rejected her outright was still vivid and fresh in her mind, and she swallowed hard as she studied his green eyes.

"I am very glad you are still here, Lord M," she said quietly, and he replied,

"Where better to be on a rainy day like this, Ma'am, than in a library?"

Victoria held up the book she'd been reading and complained,

"This one's terrible. I'll find something else. Something more exciting."

Melbourne followed her over to the tall bookshelves, and he began scanning them with his finger. He paused and suggested,

"Macbeth?"

"I've read it so many times before," Victoria complained. "I need something new."

"New," Melbourne repeated. He dragged his eyes across the shelves and finally grinned a little, gesturing to a miniature red tome. "This one's called _The Perils of Modernity_. Is that new enough for you, Ma'am?"

"Ha! I've never heard of that one. Let's see it." Victoria strode over to him, her lacy cream dress dragging a bit on the parquet flooring. Melbourne pulled the little book out, and Victoria stood very close to him as he opened it.

Then, all of a sudden, everything went white and hot.

She'd fainted, Victoria thought immediately. She'd lost consciousness. Her ears were ringing and she was blinded, and all she could hear was a loud, vivid whoosh.

* * *

"Your Majesty? Ma'am?" Melbourne sat up frantically and crawled across the strange floor to where the queen lay flat on her back. He immediately rushed to help her sit, and he patted her back as she coughed a few times. Finally she blinked her eyes open, and then the both of them looked around.

"Lord M?" Victoria said, her voice shaking, "What is this place?"

"I... I do not know, Ma'am." Melbourne studied the stark blue walls, the wispy white curtains, the angry boxy furniture, and he slowly rose. He extended a hand to help Victoria up, and then he was rendered silent. He strode to the expansive, simple window and pressed his hands to the glass, staring down an enormous height to see strange vehicles crawling through the streets like insects. There were people walking down below, their clothing bizarre to Melbourne's eyes. There were tall buildings, signs plastered to walls in unfathomable colours with enormous words. One banner advertised something called an iPhone, and when Melbourne realised he had no idea what that was, he whispered to Victoria,

"Something very strange has happened, Ma'am. We need to get you back to the palace immediately."

"Wait. Is this... is this London? Those are the Whitehall Gardens!" Victoria stared out the window and pointed across the street. Melbourne nodded and breathed,

"I have heard philosophers wonder about traveling through time. Have we done that, I wonder? What an impossible suggestion. What a ludicrous hallucination we must be experiencing."

"Time? You think this is the past?" Victoria seemed shocked, but Melbourne shook his head, looking again at the crawling vehicles and the angular buildings.

"Future, Ma'am," he said, "if it is anything more than a strange dream."

"We were in the library at Buckingham," Victoria whispered, and Melbourne nodded.

"Then everything went bright and hot."

They both gazed out the window then, and Victoria put her hands to the glass as she murmured,

"I think those are women down there. Wearing breeches. How very strange. What are those moving things? The black ones and the silver ones? They're some sort of machine."

"I have no idea, Ma'am," Melbourne admitted. "I confess I am a bit afraid to go out there."

There was the sound of knocking behind them then, and Victoria gasped as she said firmly,

"Enter."

Melbourne shot her a look, for that did not seem like the right response to a strange knock on a strange door in a strange place. He walked across the cropped black carpeting toward the door, and he tried to open it. Finally he realised he had to turn an oblong lock on the door, and when he did, he found himself staring at a very plump woman in a tunic and trousers. She shot up an eyebrow, especially when she saw Victoria behind Melbourne, and she said,

"Just housekeeping, sir. I'll come back later. Nice costumes, by the way. Have a good day, sir."

"Wait, please." Melbourne watched the woman whirl back around, and he asked carefully, "How far is it from here to... to Buckingham Palace?"

The woman grinned. "You got some sort of event there? That makes sense. Less than a twenty minute walk straight down the Mall, sir, but you'll get all sorts of looks in those costumes. Maybe take a Black Cab."

"A Black Cab," Melbourne repeated. "You mean those black vehicles I see outside."

The woman laughed and shook her head. "Now you're playing with me, aren't you? You're a funny one, sir. I'll clean later. Thanks for choosing the Corinthia."

Melbourne shut the door as the woman walked away, and as he turned, he saw Victoria holding a blue leather bag with a strange closure. She held it up to him and said,

"This was on the bed. It's filled with... well, I think it's money. Bank notes. They say they're pounds. So many of them."

Melbourne stalked quickly over and sorted through the bundles of bills. They were in many denominations - five pounds, ten, twenty, and fifty. They looked very different from anything Melbourne had seen, so he pulled a twenty pound note out and studied it.

"E II R... Queen Elizabeth II," he murmured, pointing to the portrait on the colourful note. Victoria studied the crowned woman and wondered,

"Would she know who I am, do you think?"

"I have no idea if it would be safe to reveal who you are, Ma'am. I suspect not. Who knows; if we go around declaring you to be the Queen of England, we may wind up in a jail cell."

"How absurd. I am the monarch of this country," Victoria snapped. "Or, I was. This Elizabeth II, she will know of me."

Melbourne shot Victoria a withering look. "Do you really think anyone is going to believe us, Ma'am? You saw that woman, that... housekeeper, apparently. She thought we were in costume for something. They won't believe us if we say who you are. We must get different clothes, and quickly."

"All right," Victoria nodded, the colour suddenly draining from her face. She breathed quickly then, and she whispered, "I am frightened, Lord M."

"So am I, Ma'am," he confessed. He stared at the bag of money and shrugged. "I have no clue how much of this we'll need. We'll take the whole thing and hope no one robs us, I suppose."

He zipped up the leather bag and slug it over one shoulder. Victoria handed him a little envelope and said,

"This was on the bed, too, Lord M. Room keys, it says. We're at the Corinthia Hotel."

"Room keys." Melbourne frowned and pulled out the little hard cards inside the envelope. He shook his head and held one up to study it. "This is not a key."

"Apparently it is. We ought to take them with us, probably." Victoria knitted her hands together in front of her and fretted, "I haven't got a bonnet or gloves."

"I don't suppose that will matter much here, Ma'am." Melbourne huffed out a breath and told her firmly, "If anyone asks, we are Victoria and William Lamb. Simple as that."

"Victoria Lamb. I rather like it." She smiled weakly, and Melbourne shut his eyes as he listened to the strange sounds coming from outside. A low constant roar, a sort of goose-like honking here and there... the rush of something going overhead. This was a strange new world, he realised, and they were about to jump into it head-first.

* * *

"Could I get a photo with you? You look so pretty!"

Victoria turned round at the sound of the young woman's voice. She was trying her best not to hyperventilate as they walked down the street, surrounded by vehicles that seemed possessed to drive themselves and people who were talking into little bricks beside their faces. Victoria nodded quickly, not really understanding the young woman's question. The woman came barging up in between Victoria and Melbourne and grinned, and another young woman aimed a little black rectangle at them and grinned.

"Thank you!" The young woman exclaimed. "Are you guys part of that Dickens tour or something?"

"Dickens. You know the work of Mister Dickens?" Victoria asked quickly, and the girl flushed.

"I was supposed to read _Great Expectations_ in school, but I just did the Cliffs Notes."

"I am unfamiliar with that particular work," Victoria said breathlessly. "Perhaps it was after my time."

"Victoria, I think we should go," Melbourne said quietly.

"Victoria! Are you dressed up as Queen Victoria?" The young woman nodded. "When she was young. I get it now. Brilliant, bloody brilliant. You look just like her, too!"

"Thank you." Victoria watched as the young women rushed away, and she turned her face up frantically to Melbourne.

"They knew who I was," she said. "When she was young, they said. That means they know of me old. They knew Dickens."

"It means we must find out way back, if they mentioned you being young," Melbourne said, tipping his head a little. "It makes it that much more important that we remain in cognito and get out of these clothes quickly."

"But I will need help undressing," Victoria said, her cheeks flushing very hot. "I haven't got a dresser here."

Melbourne held his hands out a bit and muttered, "Meet your new dresser, Ma'am."

Her mouth dropped open. Two dark-skinned young men walked by, and one laughed,

"Brilliant costume, mate."

Melbourne flicked his eyes to the young man and nodded. Victoria gasped as one of the vehicles whizzed by them on the street, and her heart pounded as she asked,

"What are they called?"

"I saw what looked like a newspaper a block back," Melbourne said. "It was an advertisement for something they called 'used cars.' The pictures looked just like what's driving by."

"Cars. They move so very quickly," Victoria fretted. She looked around the busy street and gestured to a shop just up the sidewalk. "There. That looks like a clothier. Sort of."

"H&M," Melbourne mused. "I wonder what that stands for."

"It doesn't matter; they appear to have the same scraps everyone's wearing," Victoria said. She licked her lips and lowered her eyes. "The women are practically naked. I can't be like that."

"We'll cover you up, Ma'am," Melbourne said carefully. He took her elbow gently and guided her up the street. More people aimed their rectangular devices at them and smiled, and Victoria wondered desperately what they were doing. 'Getting a photo,' the young woman had said.

H&M was filled with thudding music that seemed to be coming out of the ether. Victoria could not see the instrumentalists playing the deep, pounding music with its screeching overtones. She looked up at the blinding white light that was emanating from the ceiling, and her eyes burned.

"Erm... hello! Welcome to H&M." A tall woman in what looked like a tight black chemise came up to them and joked, "Anxious to get out of the fancy dress?"

"We just need a few items," Melbourne nodded, and Victoria had never seen him so frightened.

"Well, if you need any help, let me know. I'm Bailey." The young woman smiled and walked away, and Victoria marveled at the height of the heels on her shoes, at her bare legs that looked shaven. She blinked a few times and started to walk through the shop, clutching her hands together before her and feeling terrified of the racks of identical-looking clothes.

"How about this, Ma'am?" Melbourne whispered, and he picked up a long red dress. It looked strange in the way it was obviously meant to cling to the form, and Victoria whispered,

"That's an undergarment."

"It would seem as though - judging by what I saw on the street - this is quite conservative, Ma'am." Melbourne held the dress up to her and frowned. "It's too long. We'd have to find a seamstress to shorten it."

Victoria shut her eyes and murmured, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."

She spent the next ten minutes picking out skirting that didn't reach her knees, blouses that seemed awfully revealing, and a few pairs of shoes that were actually small enough for her feet. None of it seemed like real clothing; it was garish and seemed fit for only the most ribald prostitute. Melbourne wound up with some strangely collared shirts, a few pairs of rough trousers that were apparently called 'jeans,' some decent-looking black trousers, and a pair of black shoes with thick white laces. They made their way back to Bailey, the girl that had welcomed them into the shop, and they stared at one another, unsure of what else to do.

"Did you find everything all right?" Bailey asked, and Victoria just nodded. She set her clothes on the shiny metallic table between them, and then Melbourne did the same. Bailey began using a handheld device to aim a blinding red light at the little tags on each item, which seemed to trigger something on the machine to her right. After awhile, she folded and stuffed the clothes into a few large, shiny white bags that read "H&M," and she said, "That'll be one hundred and two pounds even, please."

"A hundred and two. Right." Melbourne bent down and surreptitiously unzipped the leather bag of money.

"Is there somewhere round here to buy... soap?" Victoria asked. "Hairbrushes? Things like that?"

"Sure thing; there's a Tesco Express just down the road a bit. You from out of town?"

Bailey took the two fifty pound notes and a five from Melbourne, who answered, "You could say that."

"Where are you staying at?" Bailey asked. Victoria gulped; she had never been spoken to like this by anyone in her entire life.

"The Corinthia," Melbourne answered for her.

"Well, if you're looking for somewhere quick and easy for dinner, there's a Garfunkel's just here off the Strand," Bailey said. "Otherwise... seeing as you're still in costume, maybe just room service, eh?"

"Room service," Melbourne repeated curiously, and Bailey cocked up an eyebrow.

"You know, where you call down to the front desk in the hotel and they send up food for you?"

"Thank you," Victoria muttered. She was shocked when the girl handed her the two large shiny bags. Melbourne immediately took them, knowing that even in this time and place, he could not allow her to carry her own shopping. He bowed his head politely to Bailey, who looked more than a little confused as she said,

"Have a good night, you two."

As Victoria and Melbourne left the shop, Victoria could swear she heard Bailey say behind them,

"Completely fucking mental, that pair."

 **Author's Note: Ohhhh, this one's gonna be fun. :} I promise there will be lots of adventure, mayhem, and some good slow-burning Vicbourne, too. This ain't Regina in Caritate, but if you're migrating from there, WELCOME and thanks for sticking with my writing. I'd absolutely love to hear from you in the comments.**


	2. Chapter 2

"Right. So... I think I just... pick this piece up and..." Melbourne lifted the bit that looked like a handle from the device on the table beside the bed. He heard a blaring monotone through the piece near his mouth, and he flipped it round, figuring that was supposed to be near his ear. He gulped as he studied the buttons before him. One of them specifically read 'In-Room Dining,' so he pressed that one. There were shorter sounds then, evenly spaced, and he said nervously to Victoria,

"Well, something's happening."

"Room Service for the Lamb party?" A ghostly voice rang through the handle, and Melbourne's blood went cold at the realisation that someone here knew his surname. His heart raced as he tried desperately to connect the pieces. There had been a book, then a whoosh and bright white, then this place. Money on the bed. Key cards that had taken a half hour to figure out. Apparently they were registered under the name Lamb by whatever mysterious force had sent them here.

"Hello? Sir?"

"Hello," Melbourne said loudly. He tempered his voice a little and said carefully, "I should like some... room service."

"Yes..." The voice coming though the device sounded mildly irritated. "Please go ahead with your order, sir."

"Erm... Two orders of the breast of chicken with potato and asparagus. Please." Melbourne flicked his eyes to Victoria, who stood anxiously with her hands on her waist.

"Would you like anything to drink?" The woman on the other end of the device sounded bored, and Melbourne shrugged a little to himself.

"Have you got a good Champagne?" He had no idea what to say, but the woman rattled back,

"Two chicken breast with potato and asparagus, a chilled bottle of Champagne with two glasses. Anything else?"

"Erm... no. Thank you." Melbourne anxiously pawed at the silky blankets beside him, and the woman on the device said,

"We've got your credit card on file, sir. Should be forty-five minutes. Thank you."

There was a click then, and Melbourne slowly replaced the handle to its cradle. He gulped and stood from the bed, and he said carefully,

"Well, I think they're bringing us chicken and Champagne, Ma'am."

"Perhaps you were right about getting out of these clothes," Victoria said. "Everyone stared at us the entire walk back. People were laughing at us!"

"Things... change. Over time. Think of the costumed balls we've had, Ma'am, where we dress in Renaissance clothing that seems so very different from our own."

"I suppose you're right," Victoria sighed. She looked shaky then as she shrugged and admitted, "I can't get out of this dress myself."

"I will avert my eyes whenever I can, Ma'am," Melbourne assured her. He walked slowly around the bed, and Victoria turned until her back was to him. He slowly began to unbutton her lacy dress, and he tried not to stare too hard at the skin around her neck and shoulders. There had been women on the sidewalks who had been practically nude, but seeing them had been nothing compared to undressing Victoria now.

"Where will you sleep?" She sounded genuinely worried about that, and she glanced over her shoulder. "There is only the one bedroom and that very strange bathroom. Where will you sleep?"

"On the floor, Ma'am," Melbourne told her. "I would ask for an additional, separate space for myself, but I do not think it wise to leave you alone. We have no information about how we got here and even less information about this time. I apologise for the impropriety all this necessitates."

He pushed her dress forward a bit, and Victoria raised her arms. He helped pull it off of her, and he felt dizzy as he helped her strip off the next layers. Corded petticoats, the ties of her corset... she needed help with it all, and soon enough she was in stockings and a chemise and nothing else. She still faced away from him, her hands trembling at her sides as she whispered,

"I can change myself from here, Lord M."

She picked up one of the bags from H&M and carried it into the brightly-lit bathroom, shutting the door quietly. Melbourne stared at her discarded clothing and moved briskly to shove it all into the wardrobe on the wall. He took his own clothes off as quickly as he could and rushed to put on a new outfit. The buttons on the black collared shirt he'd bought were familiar enough, but the dark 'jeans' felt rough and thick on his legs, and they were a little big around the waist. He'd bought the wrong size, he supposed. It took him a moment to figure out the press-together, clicking device at the waistband of the jeans, but he recognized the other jagged closure from the money bag. He accidentally caught up the tight black underwear he'd bought, but he pushed the jagged closure down again and fixed it. He glanced at himself at the full-length mirror on the outside of the bathroom door, thinking that perhaps he did not look half bad.

The bathroom door slowly opened, and then his mouth fell open. His queen, his sovereign and the woman he adored more than he'd ever allowed himself to say, stood before him. She wore a pleated skirt of black leather that was tight around her narrow waist and reached mid-thigh. She had on a sleeveless top of tight red material, and she'd taken out her braids and let her hair fall in long waves around her face.

Melbourne gasped a little and turned his eyes away, unable to look at her like that. She would have blended in fine on the street, he thought, but to him she seemed almost naked, and it was far too much to bear.

"The women here have their legs shaven," she noted quietly. "If I am to be so revealed to the world, I suppose I must conform to that. I bought a razor at that shop that seemed to have everything. I have no idea how to use it."

"It looked like there were instructions for use upon the packaging, Ma'am," Melbourne said, licking his bottom lip and walking away. "I shall sit over here."

"I like those... what are they called? Jeans." He could hear that she was close behind him then, and she said curiously, "You look very handsome, Lord M."

"Thank you, Ma'am." He closed his eyes, unsure of what else to say. There was a knock on the door, just like there had been earlier, but this time Melbourne knew how to open the door. A man stood with a rolling silver cart, and he nearly pushed past Melbourne as he walked into the room.

"Here on the table all right?" The man didn't wait for a reply before he began unloading covered plates. He silently unwrapped and uncorked the bottle of Champagne and poured out two glasses, leaving the bottle in a container on the little table that appeared to be filled with chunks of ice. Victoria just stared from where she stood, seeming a little frightened again. The waiter held out a small leather folio to Melbourne and said, "If you could just sign for it, sir."

"Oh... erm..." Melbourne stared at the bright blue rod he'd been handed, and he finally realised it was a pen. His cheeks went hot as he pressed on the silver button at the top of the pen and watched a miniature nib come out. He glanced around for an inkwell, but, not seeing one, he pressed the pen to the paper where it said, "Guest signature."

He hesitated for a moment, unsure of what to sign. Finally he wrote, "William Lamb," and he handed the pen back to the confused-looking servant. The man nodded and gave Victoria an appraising look, throwing up an eyebrow as he said,

"You have a good evening, sir... miss..."

As he walked out of the door and shut it behind him, Victoria scoffed,

"What a lecherous beast! The way he looked at me!"

"You're wearing a little leather skirt and barely anything on top," Melbourne seethed. Then, turning round and seeing the expression of hurt on Victoria's face, he sighed and gave a recalcitrant bow. "I do apologise, Ma'am. That was very disrespectful of me. It has been a long day, and I still do not know what to think of any of it."

"Perhaps we could both use some food in our bellies," Victoria suggested. She stood by the angular chair beside the table, and Melbourne rushed to pull it out for her. She sat and he pulled it back in, and she hesitantly put her own napkin on her lap. He pulled the shiny silver lid from her plate, revealing a very unimpressive looking breast of chicken, a few asparagus spears, and some roasted potato. He sat beside her and folded his hands in his lap, waiting for his sovereign to take the first bite.

She did, carefully sawing at the chicken and slipping it into her mouth. Her lips curled up a bit, and she assured him,

"It tastes like chicken always tastes."

Melbourne smiled a bit and picked up his own cutlery, eating in quiet as he stared out the window at the cars below. Now that the sun was going down, there were bright lights - brighter than the most vibrant gas lighting he'd seen - popping up all over the place. He'd figured out earlier that the little paddles on the hotel room controlled those type of lights in here. They even dimmed on command, which he'd found fascinating. He turned his face and studied Victoria's, the way she looked so different with her hair down, wearing modern clothes.

"The women paint their faces excessively. Did you notice?" She took another bite of chicken, and Melbourne pointed out,

"I saw plenty of ladies with no cosmetics, Ma'am. I don't think you're obligated to paint your face."

She smiled shyly at him, and she reached for his hand, which sent a jolt up his spine.

"If I am to be lost in this madness, I am glad I am lost with you, Lord M."

"Ma'am." Melbourne dragged his thumb over hers and then tore his hand away, feeling far too close to her in this small room, in this foreign existence. His hands shook as he took a few more bites of food.

"How do you suppose that bath tub works?" Victoria asked, and Melbourne shrugged a little.

"I can try it out, Ma'am, and let you know."

"Thank you." Victoria finished eating then, and as soon as she set down her knife and fork, he did the same. When the queen was finished, so was everyone else at the table, even if that was just her own Lord M.

"May I be excused, Ma'am?" He balled up his napkin in his lap. "I might go try out the bathing facilities."

Suddenly her face shifted, and she shook her head in shock. "Nightclothes. I can wear my chemise, but you..."

Melbourne's face went a bit hot. "I'll wear my... my undergarments from home, Ma'am. I'm sorry. I'll obtain something more chaste as quickly as I can."

"I do not think they care much for chastity here," Victoria said rather sadly. "I saw a man and a woman walking hand in hand down the street, and then he placed his hand flat upon her... her... backside."

"Yes, I saw that, too. It was brazen," Melbourne agreed. "Their morality is different here, I think. I saw something in that store... it... nevermind. Excuse me, Ma'am; I wouldn't speak of such a thing in your presence."

"Tell me," Victoria insisted. When he hesitated again, she said more harshly, "Tell me, Lord M."

He squeezed his eyes shut and shrugged. "They appear to have something called a... a condom. For contraceptive purposes. To avoid conception, you know. So... they are successfully non-procreative in that activity, it seems."

Victoria's cheeks went scarlet, and she whispered, "You mean that they purchase products in a store to know one another intimately without conceiving a child?"

"I do not know, Ma'am," Melbourne said honestly. He wanted her to stand then so that he could. To send the message, he covered up their plates and murmured, "It says on this card to leave the tray out in the corridor."

Victoria rose slowly then, allowing and forcing Melbourne to do the same. He could not help but study her again in her tight red top and her pleated leather skirt, and he felt dizzy all of a sudden.

"I shall take the tray," he said, "and then try out the bath."

* * *

"It comes from the ceiling, Ma'am," Melbourne said as he walked cautiously out of the bathroom. He had one towel round his waist and another wrapped about his shoulders, but he was still bare-chested, and Victoria's breath left her entirely. She blinked as he clarified, "Actually, it comes from the wall. From a sort of spigot. If you'd like, I can show you the controls. It's hot water on demand; very impressive."

Victoria followed him into the bathroom and watched as he turned a knob on the wall. Suddenly water was falling like a rain shower, and she laughed a little as she asked,

"You washed yourself in that? As if you were standing out in a storm?"

"Far more pleasant that standing out in a storm, Ma'am," Melbourne smirked. He nodded and walked quickly from the bathroom. "I shall leave you to it."

"Wait. I need my chemise," Victoria said, dashing to the wardrobe and rifling through the clothes he'd taken off of her. She finally found the chemise and blushed as she walked by Melbourne again into the bathroom. She shut the door and watched steam rise, and as she stripped off the minuscule clothes she'd bought earlier, she stared at herself in the mirror. She was frightened again then; the fear seemed to come in waves. Where were they? Who had sent them here and why? Would she ever play with Dash again? Would she ever be recognised as the queen again?

She let out a rickety sigh and turned to get into the bathtub, sitting down and immediately realising this device was meant to be used standing up. She picked up the bar of soap from the little shelf, smelling lavender on it and relishing the scent of something familiar. She rubbed it over her skin and rinsed it off, deciding against any cleansing of her hair today. She stood under the hot water and breathed in the delicious feel of it, and finally she turned the knob like Melbourne had done, and the water disappeared.

The towels were oddly thick and a little scratchy, but she managed to dry herself off before pulling on her chemise. She picked up her little leather skirt and her tiny red top, and she crept out of the bathroom. She saw Melbourne, standing shirtless facing the window in nothing but his cotton knee-length underwear, and she felt a strange flush in her veins.

"Watching the cars, Lord M?" She tried to keep her voice light, but his hands tightened behind his back, and he just nodded as he whispered,

"Yes, Ma'am. I still can't figure out how they work."

"There are many things here whose method of function seems beyond comprehension," Victoria noted. She looked around and asked, "Are there blankets and pillows for you, or shall we strip some from the bed?"

He shook his head quickly and murmured,

"I shan't be able to sleep, Ma'am. It is of no import. I may just doze off in the chair."

"But you must sleep," Victoria protested. "How can we get me back to Buckingham Palace tomorrow if you do not sleep?"

Melbourne finally turned around slowly, his eyes cast off to the side so that he did not study Victoria too closely in her chemise.

"I believe, Ma'am, that we should focus our attentions on trying to find out things like why and how the hotel knew my surname to be Lamb. We need to figure out how we got here so that we can figure out how to get home."

"Right." Victoria finally nodded and said wistfully, "It sounds as though there's another queen living in my palace, in any case."

Melbourne smiled crookedly at that, and Victoria said impulsively,

"Share the bed with me."

His mouth dropped open, and he shook his head wildly.

"N-no, Ma'am... I couldn't... that would be entirely improper."

"Who is here to deem it improper?" Victoria put her hands on her waist and scoffed. "You must sleep. I must sleep. There is but one sizeable bed, and apparently we are now in a world where men grope women in public and where relations are purely carnal."

Melbourne shut his eyes. "I will maintain propriety, Ma'am, because you are my queen, no matter where we are."

"You told me once that I could not command Parliament," Victoria noted. "Must I command you in this, Lord M? Share the bed with me... please."

That last word came out quietly, her voice almost breaking, and she stepped toward him and reached for one of his hands.

"I won't be able to sleep, either," she admitted. "Not with all the odd sounds and feels and smells and sights. I am overwhelmed. I am frightened. Please stay close to me."

Finally he nodded and whispered, "As you wish, Ma'am."

She started to walk toward the bed, pulling his hand as he hesitantly followed her. She climbed up on one side and watched as he brought himself gingerly up on the other. He did not get beneath the blankets until Victoria rolled her eyes and insisted again,

"No one is here to judge you for this, Lord M."

He silently got under the blankets and stared blankly at the ceiling, and Victoria rolled onto her side to stare at him. In the dimmed lights from beside the bed, his face was oddly shadowed but still very handsome.

"Please look at me," she said quietly, and finally Melbourne tipped his head and met her eyes. Victoria reached beneath the blankets until she found his fingers, which she threaded through hers as she asked, "Will we ever go home again?"

"Yes," he nodded. "Yes, Ma'am. I'll get you home. I promise."

Victoria curled her lips up a little and shut her eyes, tightening her grip on his hand. She tried to drown out the unfamiliar sounds from the streets below and whispered,

"Goodnight, Lord M."

There was a very long pause, and then Melbourne used his fingers to caress the back of her hand, the place he always kissed, and he murmured back,

"Goodnight, Ma'am."

 **Author's Note: Yes, this one will be fun to write. :) Please do leave a comment if you get a quick moment.**


	3. Chapter 3

Victoria blinked open her eyes and fully expected to be in her bed at Buckingham Palace. But she wasn't there; she wasn't home. She sat up slowly and stared out the window at the breaking grey dawn, at the cars creeping by below, the brightly illuminated street lamps. This was the strange world into which they'd been flung, she realised. Then she turned her face and saw Melbourne beside her in the hotel bed, sleeping peacefully on his back with his forearm cast over his eyes. She stared at him for a very long moment, feeling a stirring of something she'd only experienced a few times in his presence. After a while, she felt wrong just staring, so she whispered,

"Lord M?"

He writhed a little where he lay, making his chest and stomach move in a way that tightened Victoria's throat. But he did not wake, and so she finally reached down to put her hand on his scruffy jaw, and she murmured again,

"Lord M."

His eyes sprang open then, meeting Victoria's immediately, and he blinked a few times. His throat dipped as he swallowed, and he said in a hoarse voice,

"Morning, Ma'am."

She pulled her hand quickly from his face, feeling less self-conscious than she ought to have done before him in her chemise. She smiled sadly at him and shrugged.

"We are still trapped here, I'm afraid."

"I'm not so afraid anymore, I find," he replied. That was a strange answer, she thought, and as he sat up, he carefully arranged the blankets to bunch up around his waist. His cheeks went a little red, and he mumbled, "I may need a moment, Ma'am. Perhaps you might use the bathroom first."

She frowned but nodded, rising from the bed and stalking over to the bags they'd put on the table. She rummaged through the bag from the shop that had everything, ensuring that her comb, toothbrush and cleansing paste, perfume, and razor were inside. She took one of the H&M bags and pulled out her black skirt from the day earlier, along with a longer-sleeved, pale pink tunic of sorts. She made her way into the bathroom, glancing back toward Melbourne, whose shirtless back was heaving a little.

Victoria shut the bathroom door and stared at herself in the mirror. She'd never seen a mirror so big and clear as this one, and she dragged her fingertips around her face in the bright light, wondering if this was how she'd always looked. She combed quickly through her hair and pulled it into one braid that she secured with something called a "hair elastic." It was a ring of black fabric that stretched, and when Victoria wound it around the tail of her braid, it held fast. She grinned at the cleverness of it and resolved to take some back to Miss Skerrett.

She sat on the edge of the bathtub and soaped up her legs, carefully dragging the razor upwards in long streaks, mimicking the way she'd seen men shave their faces. She wasn't certain why the women here had shaved legs, but she was desperate to fit in. If she would not be a revered queen here, she would be an ordinary woman.

The cleansing paste for the teeth tasted so strongly of mint that Victoria gagged a little, but she finally scrubbed at her mouth and wound up feeling cleaner than ever before. She dabbed perfume on her underarms and neck, and she when she pulled the pink tunic on, she felt very bare beneath. She'd seen straps hanging out of other women's clothes. None of them seemed corseted; they had something else. Something different. Victoria figured she would have to discern that later, and for today, she just pulled up the jagged closure on her black leather skirt and bound herself into her new clothing. She rather wished she'd had some of the paint the young women had used on their faces. They'd had black-lined eyes like Egyptians and red cheeks and lips like the Georgians. Victoria's face seemed very bare in the reflection. She sighed a little and picked up her chemise, making her way back out of the bathroom to find that Melbourne had dressed into one of his new pairs of 'jeans' and a collared shirt in a pattern of dark blue and white. He looked astonishingly handsome, Victoria thought, and she stared right at him for a very long moment.

"It is all very strange, isn't it?" He said at last, turning his face to look out the window. He stuck his hands hesitantly into the pockets of his trousers, rocking back and forth on his feet as he said quietly, "Perhaps it would be wise to eat breakfast among them, to try and get our bearings a little more clearly. If you've finished with the bathroom, Ma'am, I shall take my own turn."

"Please." Victoria nodded behind him, and as he approached her, he did something very surprising indeed. He descended to one knee and reached carefully for her hand, kissing the back of it and saying very seriously,

"You are my queen."

"So I am." Victoria felt a little breathless as he rose, but she gestured behind her to the bathroom, and he went without another word. She could hear the automatically refilling basin running and then stopping, and then the sound of him scrubbing at his teeth with a brush. It was a strange sound, a strange idea that she was here with him whilst they both attended to such private needs. She had wanted her Lord M for a good long while now, but she never could have imagined this.

To distract herself, Victoria opened up the big cupboard on the wall and saw a box with a series of numbered buttons on it. THOMPSON LOCK AND SAFE, it read on the box. She pulled it open, and inside she saw two of the little black rectangles that everyone had been carrying around on the street. She pulled them out and studied them, trying to make them work the way the others had done. She tentatively put one up to her ear and whispered,

"Hello? Is anyone there?"

There was no response, so she just shut the cupboard and waited for Melbourne to emerge from the bathroom. When he did, clean-shaven and smelling intoxicatingly like manhood, she handed him one of the little rectangles and asked,

"Do you know what these are?"

"They're called iPhones," Melbourne said very confidently. Victoria frowned in confusion and was about to ask how he knew that, but he glanced over to the window and said, "There's a very large banner on a building advertising the sale of them. It seems as though everyone has them. I heard people talking on them, saw people staring at the shiny part. I have no idea what they do or how to work them."

"Perhaps it is as you say," Victoria murmured. "If we go to a restaurant nearby, we might be able to see how the others work them. Someone or something put them here for us to find. They were in the box - a safe, I think - in the cupboard."

"Interesting." Melbourne reached around his back and stuck his iPhone into the rear pocket of his jeans. He smirked and said, "Convenient enough. The other pocket can hold some notes."

He went to the big bag of money and opened it, pulling out several bills in various denominations and folding them up. He stuck them into his pocket and closed up the bag, putting it inside the box in the cupboard. He crouched down and read aloud,

"Enter four digit code to lock. Hm." He pressed a series of numbers then, a series that made Victoria's eyes burn a little. 1-8-1-9. The year of her birth. She watched him as he studied the safe, and then he entered the code again to open it. He nodded, locked it back up, and marveled, "How astonishingly clever of them."

They ensured they had one of the room keys, which, it turned out, worked by sliding it into a slot on the door. Then they left the room, descending five flights of stairs and coming out in the lobby.

"Good morning... is the lift broken?" A woman at the front desk looked awfully concerned, but Melbourne hesitated and shook his head.

"The lift," he repeated.

"They're just behind you, sir," the woman said, and Victoria turned to see a bank of four silver-doored portals with little buttons beside him. Did those move up and down in the building, she wondered? Melbourne smiled a little and said smoothly,

"We needed the exercise. May I ask you a question, Miss, if you don't mind?" He approached the front desk, and he looked very nervous as he said, "A reservation was made under my name... Lamb. We are in Room 509. Can you... can you please tell me more information about that reservation?"

"More information, sir?" The woman looked sceptical, so Melbourne clarified, "When was it made? For how long is the stay? Is it paid?"

"Oh. I can pull all that right up for you." The woman worked a little device with her right hand, pressing a button on it and staring at a glowing sheen of light that seemed to be doing something. She kept looking at the light, almost as if she were reading information from it, and she said,

"Mr William and Mrs Victoria Lamb, reservation made in April for a seventeen-night stay. Prepaid with a Visa card on file for incidentals."

"I see. Thank you." Melbourne nodded and quickly stepped away from the desk. He waited until he was most of the way out of the hotel lobby, and he muttered to Victoria, "Coming here was no accident. Some force put us here on purpose, Ma'am. I only wish I knew what force that was."

* * *

"Egg and cheese croissant with an orange juice... and the bacon, egg, and potato special with milk. Here's your check for whenever your ready." The scantily-clad young woman set down plates before them, and Melbourne nodded his thanks as she walked away. Victoria picked up her flimsy fork and poked at her so-called 'croissant,' and she said morosely,

"This looks dismal."

"It is odd," Melbourne noted, "not to see much delineation of class among them. I would not be able to pinpoint the nobility, nor the peasantry, and yet it seems they all have easy access to both luxurious and cheap goods and services. Oddly egalitarian, and yet, also quite varied in offering."

"There," Victoria said, as though she hadn't heard him at all. "Look; that woman has an iPhone just there."

They both pretended to eat as they watched the woman at the next table pull out her device from a satchel-like bag. She casually pressed her thumb to the little circle on the iPhone, and then something happened on the illuminated rectangle. The woman pressed her thumb to a little square with a blue compass on it and started hammering away as though inputting letters. Melbourne turned his face down to his plate, unwilling to be caught staring. Then he slowly pulled out his own iPhone and touched his thumb to the circle just like the woman had done. It seemed to unlock something, and the illuminated rectangle came to life. He pressed his finger to the same square the woman had done, the one with the blue compass.

Then his mouth fell open, and the little restaurant around him fell away.

WIKIPEDIA, it read, and under that, QUEEN VICTORIA.

It was like a newspaper article. Melbourne watched the woman at the next table as she flicked her thumb up the side of the iPhone in an apparent effort to scroll through whatever she was reading. Melbourne did the same thing, staring at the image of the plump old queen in a black-and-white image. Then he realised what this was. It was a biography. It was the life story of the young woman seated across from him. His heart raced when he reached a paragraph that read,

"Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. Their nine children married into royal and noble families across the continent, tying them together and earning her the sobriquet "the grandmother of Europe". After Albert's death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, republicanism temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration."

"Your Majesty," Melbourne whispered, shaking his head, "I do not suppose you ought to see this."

"See what?" She looked up from the croissant she'd been carefully carving up, and Melbourne shook his head again.

"They already know... they know everything that will happen to you. I do not suppose that is a safe thing for a person to - no, Ma'am, please."

She'd reached across the table and snatched the iPhone from him, and her eyes darkened as she read the same paragraph he'd just done.

"This is like a book," she mused. "Like a biography. My cousin Albert? And... nine children? Nine? No."

"This is not something you should know, Ma'am," Melbourne insisted, but he could not forcibly stop her from moving her fingers awkwardly on the device and reading even more. Every once in a while, she'd whisper something in awe. India. Typhoid. Sixty-three years. Finally she set the iPhone down, her chest visibly rising and falling as she said in a shaky voice,

"You're quite right; I ought not to have read that."

Melbourne silently took the device back and tucked it away again, and he said helplessly,

"You will have... an interesting life, it seems."

"I do not want nine children," Victoria protested. "I will take some of those condoms from the shop back with me and use them with whatever man I marry."

"Ma'am." Melbourne shut his eyes, but Victoria barreled onward,

"I won't marry Albert. I shall marry someone else."

"Ma'am." Melbourne felt very helpless then, picking up his glass of milk and swigging deeply from it, pulling a face at the slightly sweet taste of it. Victoria stared at him across the table and then glanced around the restaurant, looking terrified.

"I want to go home," she whispered, "and I want to stay. Here, with you. I do not know why. I want to... I want..."

"I think we should spend the rest of the day quietly in the hotel, Ma'am." Melbourne suggested. "It seems as though we've gained quite a lot of information. There is much to digest, and even more to forget."

He pulled out a twenty pound note and put it on top of the check, and he silently waited for his queen to finish eating.

"Well, that meal wasn't half so bad as breakfast," Victoria said as they ambled out of a wood-lined restaurant that had been brash and hot. She smiled up at him and suggested, "Their food is very unreliable, it seems. Oh, what's in here? It has the same sort of music as the clothing shop did."

She'd paused in front of a slick black storefront with an angry-looking man outside. There was thudding noise - it wasn't quite music, really - coming from the inside. She smirked up at Melbourne and teased him,

"As long as we're here, perhaps we ought to sample the local entertainment, Lord M."

"This place seems dangerous, Ma'am," he replied, but Victoria brazenly walked up to the large, suited man outside and asked,

"What is this? Is this some sort of shop?"

He looked amused and tipped his head.

"Darling, for you it's free. Ten quid for the gentleman."

Victoria was a little confused, but Melbourne handed a ten pound note over, which the man pocketed. He muttered down to Victoria,

"We must only stay a little while. This does not seem wise, Ma'am."

"Enjoy yourselves," said the man in the suit, pulling open a heavy black door for them. The thudding music from inside got much louder then, and Victoria stepped into the building, her eyes going wide in wonder.

There were colourful lights being cast all over the shiny surfaces of glittering white and slick black. There was a long bank of countertop at which people were gathered, shouting at workers over the din of the music. In an open space, men and women were gyrating seductively together, moving their bodies so intimately that Victoria felt her own skin tingle.

"Your Majesty, I think we should go," Melbourne's voice said, and the fact that his lips were so close to her ear made Victoria shudder. She turned to face him and smiled.

"I told you long ago that I liked dancing with you," she yelled. "Will you dance with me here?"

Melbourne looked horrified as he stared at the people moving on the floor. "That is not dancing, Ma'am. This is... an orgy, or something of the like."

"Even better!" Victoria cried, dashing off to the long countertop. Melbourne hurried behind her, and she was quickly handed a menu that read COCKTAILS. One of them claimed to be made of Earl Grey tea, gin, lemon juice, and sugar, and she could not help but wonder if the naming of the tea had anything to do with the Earl Grey from her own time. She pointed it out to Melbourne, who stared curiously at it for a moment.

"What can I get for you?" The man behind the countertop was shouting over the music, so Victoria shouted right back.

"The Earl Grey one... the... the one with the tea."

The man smiled and winked, and then he turned his face to Melbourne. Victoria missed his order, because someone had slithered up beside her, a man who had wrapped his arm around Victoria's waist and put his mouth beside her ear.

"Come dance with me, love; you're so fucking pretty," the young man practically moaned. Victoria was frozen in shock, going stiff beneath the man's hands, and then suddenly she could feel the stranger being pried off of her.

"She is with me, sir," said Melbourne, and Victoria had never wanted to kiss him more in all her life. The drunken young man reached for Victoria's cheek and shouted,

"All right. You like 'em old. That's fine, love, but if you change your mind and want some young meat, you come and find me."

He staggered off then, and Victoria felt like her knees were going to give out. Melbourne looked almost angry as he grabbed a tumbler of whiskey from the countertop and drank deeply from it.

"You still wish to stay, Ma'am?" His voice was harsh. "This place is perilous."

"I think it's magical," Victoria breathed, knowing he couldn't hear her. She turned round and took her own drink, deciding at once that it was the most delicious thing she'd ever tasted. She drank it far too quickly, and then she giggled up at Melbourne and said again,

"Dance with me, Lord M."

"Ma'am." He shook his head, but she reached for his hand and dragged him out toward the mass of humanity on the floor. Melbourne looked desperately around and called down to Victoria,

"This is... carnal."

"Then you know how, and I do not, so show me." Victoria encouraged him to wrap her arms around him the way the other men were doing to the women. Someone walked by and bumped into them, pushing her closer to his body, and suddenly his face shifted. His green eyes flashed in the dark space, and he started to sway just a little. Victoria smiled up at him, unable to contain her laughter. She threaded her arms up around his shoulders and moved even closer, trying to find the beat of the music and watching the way the other girls cycled their hips. She started to do that to Melbourne, whose mouth dropped open in shock. He started to back away, his lips shaking, and he lowered his mouth to her ear as he confessed,

"I am not prepared for this degree of immersion, Ma'am."

"Oh, very well. We shall get one more drink and watch," she huffed.

One more drink turned into three, for they were both utterly fascinated by the sights and sounds of the strange place. They learnt more about how people used their iPhones, and Victoria finally saw people 'taking a photo' the way the girl on the street had done to her. Some people seemed utterly engrossed by the devices, lost to the real world around them. The rectangles glowed everywhere. The place started to get more crowded and louder, and Victoria developed a pounding headache from the gin and the 'music' and the bright flashing lights. Finally she turned to Melbourne and shouted,

"Perhaps we ought to retire."

"Yes." He set down his empty third tumbler of whiskey, and he reached for Victoria's hand. She stared down at where he held her, knowing that he'd touched her on instinct and was modeling the way couples had come sauntering into this place. He started to pull his hand away, but Victoria squeezed at his fingers and nodded up at him. He blinked a few times, looking more than a little tipsy. His steps on the way back to the Corinthia were unsteady at best, and Victoria knew she was just as badly off.

"Wait... the... the lifts." Melbourne stopped Victoria at the doorway to the stairs and pulled her over to the bank of silver-doored portals. He pressed the button with the up arrow, which made sense since their room was upward. Victoria was amazed when the doors slid open on their own. A similarly intoxicated-looking couple quickly entered the lift, so Melbourne and Victoria followed suit.

"Which floor?" The other man in the lift asked, and Melbourne said hoarsely,

"Five."

The man pressed the number five, along with the number three, and both buttons illuminated with a little red dot. Victoria tired not to gasp when the doors shut and the lift started moving. She squeezed Melbourne's hand harder than ever and shut her eyes, terrified of the motion. The other couple got off at level three, and then the door shut again and Victoria admitted,

"It's all very, very frightening, isn't it, Lord M?"

"Yes, Ma'am," he replied. She was the one who managed to slip their key card into their door, and as they made their way inside on drunken legs, she started to peel off her sweaty clothing.

"Your Majesty," Melbourne hissed, and Victoria gasped as she realised she was stripping off her clothes in front of him. She shook her head and said distantly,

"I'm sorry, Lord M; I'm... drunk."

He was silent then, staring out the window at the artificially bright street below, and finally he said in a serious voice,

"I could not... dance... in that way with you. It felt entirely too intimate, Ma'am. I do not much care what their standards are. I can not touch you like that."

"Because I will marry Albert and have nine children?" Victoria asked miserably, but Melbourne shook his head and said desperately,

"Because you are my queen, Ma'am."

She stumbled out of her black shoes and walked over to stand before him. She shook her head a little and reminded him,

"A hotel reservation made in your name, a hundred and seventy years removed from our time. A bag of money. Two of their iPhones with my biography waiting to be read. Someone sent us here, using whatever sort of witchcraft they had, and it wasn't so that everything could stay the same."

"What do you mean, Ma'am?" Melbourne sounded a little tortured then, and Victoria tipped her head.

"It is just you and I here, Lord M."

"Your Majesty... I can not... no matter how badly I've..." Melbourne wrenched his eyes shut and scoffed, "I'm drunk, too, I'm afraid."

"Lord M?" Victoria reached for his hands and stroked them carefully. "May I have a kiss goodnight?"

"No," he said simply, and she frowned at the rejection. But then he opened his eyes, his striking green eyes, and he said, "It wouldn't stop at a kiss, Ma'am. Not here, not after liquor, not in a bedroom alone with you when I... no. I must not."

"Then I shall give you a kiss," she said, "and I will stop at that."

She reached up to take his face in her hands, remembering the way he'd pulled the strange man off of her. He'd been so angry, so protective, and Victoria found her breath accelerating in her chest. She pulled herself up onto her tiptoes and pulled him down a little, and she brushed her lips against his.

Melbourne's hands immediately flew to her waist, and his own breath was rickety on her mouth.

"Ma'am..." he whispered desperately. Victoria just kissed him again, more firmly this time, and he grunted a bit as his lips pressed firmly against hers. She felt his tongue drag over her bottom lip a little, and then he quickly wrenched himself away, coughing quietly into his fist as he stammered,

"I - I apologise, Your Majesty."

"I kissed you, not the other way round," Victoria pointed out. Melbourne went and stood by the chair, and he said simply,

"I shall stay in my clothing and sleep here."

"No. You shall sleep in the bed with me," Victoria protested, knowing she sounded petulant and not much caring. Melbourne gave her a look of desperation, and he begged her,

"Help me find myself right now, Ma'am. Help me find you again. I think we are very lost."

Victoria finally nodded, realising then just how much gin she'd had, and she made her way slowly to the bathroom to clean herself up.

 **Author's Note: Uh-oh. So Victoria knows her biography as we know it. Will she want to change it? How much longer can Melbourne stave off their mutual lust in a world that so readily permits it? And who (or what) set them up to come here? These questions and more will be answered in upcoming chapters. :} Thank you so very much to those reading, and a HUGE thank you for any feedback/comments.**


	4. Chapter 4

"Oh, so that's what they're all wearing."

Victoria stopped walking in front of a shop whose enormous windows were lined with headless mannequins wearing tiny undergarments. She glanced up to Melbourne, who went red-faced, and he insisted at once,

"If you intend to go in there, Ma'am, I think I shall wait out here."

"Very well," she said, and she walked straight in. It smelled of strong perfume inside the shop, and absolutely everything was in one shade or another of pink. Victoria was approached at once by a sales woman with a measuring tape round her neck, and the young woman said,

"Morning. Can I treat you to a free fitting?"

A fitting. That sounded familiar. Victoria nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, please."

She followed the young woman through the heavily-perfumed shop, ogling the way the undergarments seemed to embrace and enhance the bosoms of the mannequins wearing them. In the back of the shop, Victoria was taken into a small, black-curtained space, and she put her arms up as the sales woman started making measurements of her bust. She'd had her measurements taken before, but for corsets and gowns. This was different.

"Right. I can bring you a few different types of bra, so you can try and see what you like," said the woman. "Are you looking for something lacy, something smooth beneath clothes...?"

"Smooth, I suppose," Victoria said, remembering the way her chest had shown so much through her tunic. The sales woman left, and Victoria was left staring at herself in a full-length mirror. She studied the way her skirt, made of the same material as Melbourne's jeans, hit her so high up her thighs, the way her legs were revealed to anyone they passed on the street. No one seemed to notice. It was bizarre.

The woman came back with three garments, one quite plain and beige and the others in a more creamy, satiny-looking material.

"Just a tip," the sales woman said. "Fasten the hooks in the front, turn it round, stay bent over and put your tits all the way in, then adjust the straps whilst you're still bent over. You want to be sure the cup is all the way filled."

Victoria must have looked bewildered, but after the woman left, she stripped off her black top and picked up one of the cream-coloured garments. Her fingers shook as she struggled to buckle it in front the way the woman had said. She pushed her breasts into it, still bent over, felt the straps dig into her shoulders a little, and stood. She was amazed by the way her small breasts looked so much bigger, so much more alert, and she grinned. She nodded and called,

"I'll take all three of them."

"Anything else today?" the sales woman asked as she guided Victoria from the fitting chambers. Victoria asked tentatively,

"Have you got nightgowns here?"

"Oh, yes. I think I've got the perfect colour for you. Sort of a sea foam," the woman said. She walked to a rack and pulled down a very short satin flounce of a dress with gold lace partially covering the breast area. Victoria stared in awe at it, and she asked,

"This is a nightgown?"

"It's a bit more playful, you know?" The sales woman held up another matching nightgown in a coral colour and asked, "Do you like either of these?"

"Both," Victoria breathed. The sales woman seemed more eager then, and she gestured toward a round, clear table upon which a wide array of miniature drawers had been spread.

"Cheek-hugging knickers are three for twenty, if you're interested," the woman said. Victoria nodded and picked out six of them, and as she made her way up to the sales counter, she realised something.

"My... erm... my husband. He's got the money. I'll go and fetch some," she said. The woman nodded, and Victoria hurried outside to find Melbourne carefully watching the people walking by him.

"Lord M," she said breathlessly, "I need money."

"Oh," he said, glancing up toward the store. "How much, Ma'am?"

"I didn't ask," she admitted, and Melbourne smirked as he pulled a few hundred pound notes from his back pocket.

"If it's more than that, I think they're overpriced," he said. Victoria smiled rather flirtatiously and turned to go back into the shop. All of it together was still a sizeable sum, and Melbourne looked surprised when she only handed him one hundred pounds and some change. She had two pink bags to carry, and he hesitated before offering to take them.

"I don't mind carrying them," she assured him, and he looked very relieved. He asked rather awkwardly,

"Did you find... what you were looking for?"

"Oh, yes," Victoria grinned. "Now. Let's go to the palace."

* * *

"It looks different." Victoria tipped her head curiously, and Melbourne agreed,

"The facade has been entirely redone, it seems. It's larger, too. The exterior's different, but the windows are all in the same place. I wonder what it's like on the inside."

"You know, it's strange," Victoria said, gesturing up to the mounted and standing guards. "They seem so very unceremonious about just about everything, but there is still ceremony here."

"The monarchy is immortal, Ma'am," Melbourne said seriously, and Victoria's face went still as she stared up at the building that had been the seat of her power.

"Right this way... everyone gather round!"

Melbourne turned his face to see a loud, brash-looking woman with a small yellow umbrella that read STUART TOUR GROUPS on it. She was talking to an assembled group, all of whom had their iPhones out. Melbourne and Victoria both watched with curiosity as they pressed the little square that said "camera," and one by one their devices transformed into what seemed like clear windows. They could see the palace through their iPhones, Melbourne realised. They pressed a little red button at the bottom of the device, all of them seeming to capture the same view. Then they slowly lowered their phones, and the woman with the umbrella said,

"This is Buckingham Palace. Now, the first reigning monarch to live at Buckingham Palace was Queen Victoria, and her husband, Prince Albert, oversaw the redesign of the palace, which had proven too small for their expansive family."

The people in the group laughed a little, and Victoria shot Melbourne a shocked look. He managed to keep his face steady and listened as the tour guide said,

"We'll actually be visiting the Victoria and Albert Museum later today. British monarchs and politicians have long given their names to places all over the world, not just here in London. From Georgia and Virginia in America to the state of Victoria in Australia, there are many places where the British Empire had its sticky fingers and left namesakes. Now, does anyone know the name of the second largest city in Australia? Not Sydney, but..."

"Melbourne!" A man in a heavily accented voice called, and the woman nodded. Victoria reached silently for Melbourne's hand, and the tour guide said,

"Yes. Melbourne was just a tiny outpost when it was named for Queen Victoria's first prime minister. They say it was him who sculpted her into the formidable queen she turned out to be. She was not raised here at Buckingham Palace; she was raised at Kensington Palace under a brutal system designed by her mother's ally to allow others to take power from the young Victoria. It didn't work, thanks in large part to the mentorship of Lord Melbourne, who faded from Victoria's life after she married Albert. Of course, Buckingham Palace is now the primary residence of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, who is currently on her annual holiday at Balmoral. Let's move this way to get a better look at the guards."

Once the group had gone, Melbourne fought against his racing heard and pulled his hand from Victoria's. He blinked quickly. These people had heard of him. Not just of her, of Victoria, but of him - William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne. They knew that his importance to her had dissolved after her marriage to her cousin Albert. He gulped hard and stared down at Victoria, and she whispered,

"How do they know about my childhood under Sir John? And... the Victoria and Albert Museum? My expansive family? Lord M, I can't..."

She shut her eyes for a long moment then, and she finally held up the iPhone that had mysteriously appeared in their hotel room. He watched her fingers shake terribly as she activated the device and then pressed the square that read "Camera," just like the visiting group had done. She held up the iPhone with a trembling hand, the palace appearing in clear view on the little rectangle. She pushed the red button, and she turned round with a sad little smile.

"I do believe, Lord M, that I've just taken a photo," she said. "Now I want one of you. After all, you're the man who made me into the formidable queen I would become."

She was using the tour guide's word, and Melbourne did not have it in him to argue with her. Not here, not in front of her changed home. So he just shifted positions with her and stood in front of the view of the palace, frowning deeply. Victoria held her iPhone up and peered around it.

"They smile for their photos, I think. Like a portrait, but very happy."

Melbourne smirked a bit at that, and as Victoria pressed the button on her phone, she said,

"Perfect."

She stared at him for a long while then, and it was so strange to see her go wholly unrecognised in a swarm of casual humanity. He was taken, suddenly, to the memory of her at her Coronation. He'd been filled with pure amazement at the sight of her magnificence. She had looked at once regal and childlike, her heavy diamond-encrusted crown making her neck unsteady. He'd stood beside her with the ceremonial sword, feeling dazed with pride and admiration. Now she stood before him in a short skirt and a tight top, her long hair blowing a little in the cool breeze. She was as beautiful as ever.

* * *

Victoria stared into the bathroom mirror and wondered if she ought to call out to Melbourne and have him bring her her chemise. She felt practically naked in the semi-sheer, sea foam green nightgown. It was so very short, and the gold lace at the chest did nothing to conceal her nipples. She took a shaking breath and opened the bathroom door, pushing the paddle on the wall to shut off the automatic light. She walked with as much confidence as she could muster, drawing forth memories of the time she'd had to inspect the troops when she's been so hated in the wake of Flora Hastings' death. She steeled herself now just like she'd done then.

Melbourne turned slowly from the window, where he so liked to stand and just watch, and his lips parted a bit. He turned his eyes away and muttered,

"They call that a nightgown, do they, Ma'am?"

"Is it so awful as that?" She tried to keep her voice light and airy, but Melbourne sounded very serious as he replied,

"Not awful at all, Ma'am."

"Lord M." She walked quickly up to him then, and she licked her lips as she put her hands on his chest. They'd purchased for him a few pairs of soft, loose cotton trousers and equally casual shirts that were apparently what comprised men's pyjamas these days. His chest heaved through the thin shirt, and Victoria said carefully, "I will not let it happen. What that woman said. That you faded from me after I married Albert. I will not let it happen."

"But, Ma'am, it's already happened," he said. "When we go home, you will need to live the life they remember you living."

"And if I refuse?" Her voice was a cracked little whisper then, and she felt her eyes burn as she said up to him, "Lord M, this strange time we have in this strange place may be my only chance with you. I do not think I have made much of a secret of my... of the way I..."

"No, you have not, Ma'am, but even here, I must preserve you in every way for the husband you will have." He covered her hands with his and shook his head a bit. Victoria gnawed her lip then, watching his eyes flick up and down her form, and she told him again,

"This may be my only chance with you. So please, I beg you, Lord M. Stop rejecting me so viciously."

"Rejecting you..." Melbourne shook his head and whispered, "Ma'am, I'm sure it is very obvious how badly I... how deeply I..."

"What? How deeply you what?" Victoria asked, and then, without warning, Melbourne pushed on her shoulders a little until she was pressed against the wall. He started kissing her then, bending to crush his mouth against hers. His hand dragged up the outside of her thigh, playing with the hem of her nightgown, and she gasped and tipped her head back. He immediately moved his mouth to her neck and began ravishing her there, his lips and teeth and tongue merciless as he made Victoria flush wet between her legs. His hand kept going up her side until he reached her chest, and he pawed a little at her through the gold lace of her nightgown. That felt good, remarkably good, and Victoria asked breathlessly,

"Did you purchase any of those... those condom devices?"

"What? No, Ma'am." Melbourne pulled his face away, his lips swollen and dewy as he shook his head down at her. His hands stilled on her, and he said quite firmly, "We do not come from a libertine place like this. When you go to bed on your wedding night, Ma'am, you will need to be virginal. I can not... I would never be able to..."

"And why not? If it was you that I chose for such a thing?" Victoria felt her cheeks go hot, and Melbourne said desperately,

"Ma'am, in my life, you are the queen, and I am your aging and scandalous prime minister. That is who we are, no matter the funny clothes we don or the new places we go. When we go home -"

"When. You keep saying that as if it is some sort of certainty." Victoria shrugged a little. "How exactly do you propose we go home, Lord M?"

He stepped away from her then, rubbing a bit at his jaw as he admitted softly, "I have no idea, Ma'am. I only know that we must, because they all remember you growing old and conquering India and... and having nine children with Albert of Saxe-Coburg. They all remember me fading out of your life. So for me to claim you here would be... very wrong of me, I think."

Victoria leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. "Lord M, my time with you - riding out and drawing and dining together and just talking - it is the only joy I have ever been allowed to choose for myself. I like it here. I like being with you. If we ever go home again, I want you by my side."

There was a heavy silence between them then, and finally Melbourne said,

"Perhaps... perhaps I could hold you for just a little while. In the bed. Ma'am."

Victoria followed him across the room, her bare feet padding on the cropped carpeting. She climbed up into the bed and let him pull the blankets around her. He encouraged her to roll until her back was against him, and he pulled her hair back and kissed beneath her ear. He wrapped his arm around her and laced his fingers through hers, and he murmured gently,

"Believe me, Ma'am; the very last thing I'll ever want to do is leave you. For now, where we are, I am by your side, and you are by mine. And for now, where we are, I think that must be enough."

Victoria pulled his knuckles up to her lips and kissed them, and she said softly into the darkness,

"Goodnight, Lord M."

He kissed her cheek and sighed. "Goodnight, Ma'am."

 **Author's Note: Oh, dear. Poor Lord M, learning at the same time that he's got the second largest city in Australia named after him but also that Victoria quickly moved onto her husband. Maybe the past can be changed...? And Victoria seems awfully eager to get her hands on a condom, huh? As always, thank you so much for reading and especially for any and all reviews.**


	5. Chapter 5

"Lord M..."

His eyes fluttered open, and he turned his face to see Victoria writhing a little where she lay. Her eyes were closed in sleep, and her mouth was a little slack as she whimpered again,

"Lord M!"

He opened his mouth to say something, to answer her, but then he realised she was dreaming. She rolled onto her back a little, her braided hair following her, and she let out a tortured little noise. Then her back arched a bit, and it dawned on Melbourne just what sort of dream this was. His cheeks went hot as fire, and he found himself reaching with a shaking hand to clamp onto the pillowcase beside him.

"Oh, Lord M," Victoria breathed. Her head rolled against the pillow a little, and Melbourne watched her cheeks flush dark pink. The flush spread down her neck and over her chest, and then she writhed again and moaned softly. She was quiet and still after that, until her own eyes blinked open and she seemed to be panting a bit for breath. She flicked her eyes over to see Melbourne staring at her, and she said self-consciously,

"What a very strange dream I just had."

"Did you?" His voice crackled in the darkness, and then he could tell that Victoria knew what had happened. She shut her eyes and admitted,

"I... have never had a dream quite so vivid as that. I'm sorry I woke you."

"I do not mind, Ma'am." Melbourne found himself short on words all of a sudden, but he was so hard between his legs that it almost hurt. He licked his bottom lip and whispered, "Please, may I... will you excuse me, please, Ma'am?"

She just nodded, and Melbourne slithered off the bed, trying desperately to conceal his erection as he walked round the bed. He was going to the bathroom to finish himself off; he couldn't lie there unfulfilled beside her. Suddenly Victoria caught his wrist in her little hand, and he whirled back around as the front of his pyjamas was revealed to her. She stared at the lump in his cotton trousers for a moment, and she sat up slowly.

"Please," Melbourne whispered, shaking his head. Victoria frowned with concern and asked,

"Are you all right, Lord M?"

"It means I want you, Ma'am, but I can't, so please just allow me to -"

"Will you come here, please?" Victoria asked, and the way her breasts heaved in her tiny excuse for a nightgown made Melbourne squeeze his eyes shut. He wanted to tell her no. He wanted to kiss her all over. He wanted to just walk away, to desert his queen and go straight to the bathroom. He wanted to feel the way she'd still be wet after...

He was climbing back into the bed before he knew what was happening. Victoria slid over and reached brazenly for the waistband of his pyjamas, pulling out his hard cock and going wide-eyed at the feel of it. Melbourne hissed out a breath through his teeth and reached with a shaking hand beneath her wispy little nightgown. He pushed aside the strange little drawers women here wore, his fingers feeling the damp heat of her arousal. Victoria moaned helplessly when he dragged his fingertips back and forth, and he used his other hand to help guide her touch on his member.

"Your Majesty, please tell me to stop," he begged her, thrusting his hips up into her hand. She shook her head and whispered,

"No. No, Lord M. Don't stop."

"Oh." His fingers shook against her, feeling the oyster-like folds of her womanhood slick and swollen beneath his fingers. He played with her nub just a little and elicited a gasp from her. Her hand tightened on him, and he showed her how to focus on his tip. That was far too much, and suddenly he found himself yanking up his shirt and staring down as she instinctively quickened her hand. He groaned and watched as he came all over his own stomach, as it got all over Victoria's hand, and she seemed just as awed as he was. He waited for the heat between his ears to abate, and he whispered in a broken little voice,

"I'm profoundly sorry, Ma'am."

"Whatever for?" She stared up at him, and then down at her hand, curiously examining the white fluid that was covering her fingers and palm. Melbourne pulled his hand from her, very confident that she'd found her own release in sleep, and he slowly climbed from the bed. He walked carefully into the bathroom and used his elbow to activate the automatic light. He scrubbed at himself with soap water from the basin, cleaning off his cock and his stomach and his hand. Suddenly Victoria was beside him, and he moved aside so that she could wash her own hand. She found his eyes in the mirror then, and half her mouth quirked up as she said,

"Look at us, Lord M. Look what we're wearing. We look a little silly, don't we?"

"You do not look silly, Ma'am," Melbourne said, studying the way her breasts were cradled by the gold lace on the pale green dress. He turned his eyes to his own reflection, thinking that the brash white light made his grey hairs more obvious and the wrinkles on his face seem deeper. He gulped and looked at Victoria's reflection as he said,

"I should have just ignored your dream."

"I imagine I made that a rather difficult task," she said. "I was dreaming of you, Lord M."

He nodded. "I know."

She tuned and left without another word, and Melbourne leaned heavily on the shimmering quartz countertop. He stared at his own reflection again, studying the man in the mirror and wondering what had happened to the genteel prime minister who had been something of a father figure to the queen. He was no father figure here, he reckoned, remembering the way she'd moved against him in the dark dance club with the pounding music. He remembered her cheeky smile as she'd gone into the women's clothing shop, the way she'd 'taken his photo' and grinned so beautifully at him.

He liked her here, he thought. She had so much less to burden her here. She was so much more free. But then he remembered what they all knew of her. She'd married Albert in 1840. Even if they made it home to the same time where they'd left, that was less than a year away. He would have so little time with her in the world they had known before she would turn her attentions and her needs to her husband. And then she would be gone from him. He shut his eyes and, with a spike of terror, contemplated that perhaps he did not ever want to go home.

* * *

"This says it is the largest library in the world," Victoria said, pointing to the little pamphlet they'd been handed upon entering the British Library. She lowered her voice and suggested, "If it doesn't exist here, it probably doesn't exist in England."

"They'll have heard of it, at least," Melbourne nodded. "They'll be able to help us track it down."

He meant the book that had sent them here, of course. Nothing had happened until he'd opened the little red book, _The Perils of Modernity_. The two of them walked now into the ultra-modern, red-brick building and approached the desk that read "HELP."

"Morning. Have you a Reading Pass?" The woman at the desk seemed curt and brusque, and Melbourne carefully measured his words.

"We are search of a book that we can not easily locate."

"So you have a genuine need, then. I can grant you a Reading Pass; it's quiet today." The woman pulled out a sheet of paper and one of the self-inking pens they used, and she asked sharply, "Name and institution?"

"Erm... William Lamb. Office of the prime minister."

The woman's eyebrows went up. "Office of the prime minister?"

Melbourne realised at once that he ought not to have said that. He laughed a little and shrugged. The woman didn't seem to know whether he was joking or not. She looked past Melbourne and barked at Victoria,

"Name?"

"Victoria. Victoria Lamb," she said quietly. Something changed in the eyes of the woman at the desk. She studied both of them for a very long moment, and then she set the little pass she'd been filling out aside.

"If you're in search of a book, why don't you tell me the title, and I'll search out catalogues. You won't need a Reading Pass until we're sure it's here, anyway."

" _The Perils of Modernity,_ " Melbourne said. "That's the title. It's a little red volume, published sometime in the 1830s, I think."

"The 1830s." The woman looked more suspicious than ever, and she locked her gaze onto Victoria's face. "Whoever named you did a fantastic job. You look just like her in the portraits I've seen. Queen Victoria, when she was young."

"Oh. Erm... thank you." Victoria turned her face away a little, and the woman at the desk looked as though she were about to scream for help. She cleared her throat and turned to the machine on her right, the same kind the woman at the front desk of the hotel had used. Her hands flew across the keys on the desk, and she murmured, " _The Perils of Modernity._ Have you got an author name?"

"No. I apologise." Melbourne shifted on his feet, giving Victoria an uneasy look. The woman at the desk frowned and shook her head, studying the machine before her.

"We have no record of any such book being published in England. Certainly if it were something in wide circulation during the 19th century, we'd be able to see some record. If you found a copy somewhere, it might have been a one-off. Something like that sounds more like a self-print by a religious figure, you know?"

"Right." Melbourne drummed his fingers on the desk and asked, "So you haven't got a copy of here... in the largest library in the world?"

"Afraid not," the woman said. "I suppose you won't be needing that Reading Pass, then?"

"No... apparently we won't. Thank you." Melbourne turned to go, instinctively putting his hand to the small of Victoria's back. It was a protective sort of gesture, but she let him do it. Once they were back outside, she huffed,

"Well. We're no nearer to getting home now than a few days ago, then."

"I need to think more on all this," Melbourne admitted. "I have no idea where to go from here, Ma'am."

"Someone planted that book in my library, and you pulled it out and opened it," she noted. "Why? Some sort of Providence?"

"What strange Providence," Melbourne muttered. They were quiet then, just standing in front of the library until Victoria finally said,

"It was rather a long walk here. Do you suppose we should take one of those Black Cabs back to the hotel?"

Melbourne's eyes went wide. "You want to ride in one of those?"

She smiled a little. "It could be fun. It could be completely terrifying, or it could be fun. Let's find out, shall we?"

"As you command, Ma'am." Melbourne walked up to Ossulton Street, where cars were whizzing past. He'd seen people calling the cabs over by simply holding their hands up in the air, and so he tentatively approached the sidewalk and stuck his arm skyward. Almost immediately, one of the Black Cabs pulled up and screeched to a stop, and the driver quickly came round and opened the back door of the vehicle. Melbourne waited for Victoria to come, and he helped her inside and then followed her. The door shut, and Melbourne felt his breath accelerate in his lungs. Victoria looked scared all of a sudden, as if she were seriously regretting the suggestion of riding in the cab.

"Where to today?" The driver seemed friendlier than most of the people they'd met. Melbourne said carefully,

"The... The Corinthia Hotel, if you please."

"Straight away." The driver started working the controls of the cab, and Melbourne gasped as the car lurched forward. It moved smoothly through the traffic on the road, and Victoria started to squeeze his hand so hard that the pain distracted him. He looked over to see her staring out the window with shaking lips and eyes round as saucers.

"You like the Corinthia? I've heard good things," said the driver from the front seat, and somehow Melbourne managed to croak out,

"Yes. It's very nice."

"How long you in town for?" The driver seemed eager for conversation. Melbourne forced himself to stop looking at how quickly they were moving, to ignore the nauseated lurch in his stomach, and he said,

"Two more weeks, we're booked."

"Nice long stay, then," the driver said happily. "Seeing any shows on the West End whilst you're here?"

"The West End?" Melbourne shook his head nervously. "N-no. We hadn't planned on it. Shows. We quite like opera."

"Ha. Well, if it's opera you like, go see Phantom! Great production. Plays at Her Majesty's Theatre. You can get discounted tickets at one of the kiosks near the theatres. Or just book with your concierge."

"Thank you for the information," Melbourne choked. He felt sick from the way the car was weaving, and his hand had gone numb from Victoria squeezing it. He finally turned to her and asked,

"Would you like that? Would you like to see... Phantom? On the West End?"

"All right." Victoria was still staring out the window, her eyes blinking quickly and her chest heaving with anxiety. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, they arrived at the Corinthia Hotel, and Melbourne paid the driver for the ride. His legs shook like a jelly as he climbed out of the cab, and he carefully guided Victoria into the hotel building. They found a quiet lounge in the hotel lobby, and they settle down onto plush cream chairs and ordered stiff drinks. Victoria sipped quickly at her gin and tonic, and Melbourne let his whiskey burn his throat.

"That was indeed terrifying," she whispered at long last. "Thrilling. Exhilarating. But so terrifying."

Melbourne set his whiskey down and shrugged a little. "Our money will eventually run out, Ma'am. Before that, our hotel reservation will expire. And we have no real clue as to how to get home."

Victoria nodded, sipping from her drink again and shutting her eyes. When she opened them again, she said, "Perhaps we ought to begin making some plans to stay."

"To stay." Melbourne shook his head and insisted, "We can not stay. We do not belong here."

"We could belong here," Victoria said gently, looking around. "We could... gain employment. Get a little flat."

"I think perhaps that drink is a bit strong, Ma'am," Melbourne whispered, but Victoria said gravely,

"It would be wise for us to have plans beyond two weeks, Lord M."

He sighed. "I will extend our reservation. I have done calculations... we have ninety-five thousand pounds remaining. The money bag is large, and there are a great many bundles of hundred-pound notes. Even if we do things like... you know, go to shows... and pay for the hotel... we could easily sustain ourselves for months. But is our own world going on without us, Ma'am?"

"We will continue to try and find our back." She sounded reluctant as she sipped at her drink. She chewed her lip and said, "A show sounds like a fine distraction. The cab driver said something about booking with the hotel concierge. Shall we get tickets?"

Melbourne smiled a little at her and nodded. "We used to go to the opera, you and I."

"We did. We sat in a royal box," Victoria grinned. She shook her head and said, "I do not suspect we will be sitting in a royal box tonight."

"No. Probably not. But we shall enjoy ourselves just the same."

After they'd finished their drinks, Melbourne headed toward the concierge. Victoria asked him softly,

"May I have forty pounds, please?"

"Forty pounds?" Melbourne frowned at her, knowing better than to question his monarch further. She shrugged and said,

"They have some of the cosmetics - the makeup - available in that little shop across the lobby. I'd like to get some for tonight."

"Oh. Right. Erm... I shall meet you over there after I've booked the tickets, Ma'am." Melbourne handed her two twenty pound notes and watched as she quickly crossed the lobby, and he made his own way over to the concierge.

* * *

Victoria carefully brought the red lipstick across her bottom lip and then the top. She looked ludicrous, she thought, and she wiped if off and started over. It took her five tries to get anything that looked like what she'd seen on the street. She still felt like a bit of a joke with her lips so bright, but she knew this was normal here. She nearly stabbed herself in the eye more than once with the wand containing mascara to darken her lashes. That had been all the makeup she'd been brave enough to purchase. Victoria pulled out the other little box from the crinkly plastic shopping bag, and she studied the back of it carefully.

 _Read instruction leaflet inside carefully,_ it said, so she opened the box and pulled out the folded leaflet. She unfurled it and scanned her eyes over it, her gaze settling on the part that said,

 _Place the condom on the penis as soon as it becomes erect._

She gulped hard and kept reading.

 _Carefully tear the package from the serrated zigzag edge, being careful with all fingernails and jewelry to avoid tearing the condom. Place the condom on the erect penis and slowly roll it downward. If it doesn't roll easily, start over with a new condom. Pull gently at the well on the tip to ensure no air is trapped. After the completion of sexual activity, dispose properly of the condom, being sure not to spill its contents._

"Ma'am?"

Victoria dropped the box of condoms and gasped toward the bathroom doorway, where Melbourne stood in his more formal trousers and a collared shirt. He pursed his lips as he stared at the condoms on the bathroom counter, and he said quietly,

"I thought you were buying cosmetics, Ma'am."

"I did," she said lightly. "See my lips?"

"Mmm-hmm." Melbourne did not take his eyes from the condoms. He finally turned away from the doorway and said, "If we're to arrive at the show on time, Ma'am, we ought to leave now. We'll take another cab, if you think you can stand it."

Victoria shoved the condoms into the space below the basin, and she felt humiliated as she walked uneasily in her high heels from the bathroom. She paused in front of Melbourne and asked,

"Are you very cross, Lord M?"

He hesitated, but then he tucked her hair behind her ear and bent to kiss her cheekbone.

"No, Ma'am. I could never be cross with you. Shall we go?"

She reached for his hand, wondering if he would reject her attempt to hold onto him as they walked. She whispered,

"I'm a bit unsteady in these heels. Will you hold onto me?"

"Yes, Ma'am." His voice was a little hoarse, and when he looked down at her, there was a blaze in his green eyes that she'd never seen before. He sighed and pulled the hotel room door open, and Victoria walked as elegantly as she could in her tight black dress and her garish red lipstick as they made their way out into the night.

 **Author's Note: Oh, Victoria. Always so curious and brazen, huh? Lord M doesn't seem to mind nearly as much as he should. Mwah hahaha. Yes, we will see them at Phantom in the next chapter. Yes, we will see them come back from Phantom to the hotel room in the next chapter. :} Thanks for reading and a huuuuge thank you for reviewing.**


	6. Chapter 6

" _Close your eyes and surrender to your darkest dreams. Purge your thoughts of the life you knew before..._ "

Melbourne flicked his eyes over to Victoria through the darkness to see her staring in awe at the stage. She thought they were singing directly to her. He could tell by the way her fingers clutched at the hem of her short black dress, at the way her mouth had fallen open a little. She seemed even more enraptured than Christine upon the stage.

This production felt more familiar than anything else they'd experienced. There was dance and operatic singing, and its setting far more resembled the world they had left behind. But it was also very sensual, and Melbourne found himself sympathising enormously with the Phantom. He could see himself in the old, misshapen figure who so yearned for the beautiful young ingenue. Then Raoul, the dashing young aristocrat, came in and stole Christine's heart away. By the time the intermission came and the lights brightened, Melbourne found himself asking Victoria,

"So, Ma'am... what do you think?"

"I think the poor Phantom was utterly deserted by the cruel and heartless Christine," she said. "I think that Raoul is an interloper."

Melbourne smirked, neither of them willing to admit the parallel aloud. He shrugged and said carefully, "The costumes are nice, I think. Beautiful sets. Impressive work with their lights and other effects."

"Yes. It is a magnificent production," Victoria nodded. She turned her attention to the biographies of the actors listed in the pamphlet they'd received, and she paused when she came to an advertisement for a jeweler called Cartier. She pointed to the diamond bracelet on the page and murmured,

"This bracelet. I came here wearing one just like it. Would it sell for much, I wonder?"

Melbourne said nothing. He knew why she was asking. She wanted to stay. She would sell the diamonds she'd been wearing when they'd come so that they could prolong their stay here. But it didn't matter; they had no way home, anyway. Victoria turned the page and gasped a little at an ad for a Mediterranean cruise.

"That's the largest ship I've ever seen," she marveled. Melbourne studied her profile then, the way her nose curved just at the end, the way her tongue dragged over her bottom lip a little.

She'd bought condoms. She wanted him. She would not have purchased condoms if she hadn't wanted him. Of course, he'd known for ages - even back home - that she bore him great fondness and possibly even lusted after him. But here, with the two of them alone, he could finally let her give into that want. He'd let her do it this morning; he'd let her touch him until he'd covered her hand with his seed.

Suddenly he felt rather breathless where he sat, and he asked,

"Would you like some water, Ma'am? I think I might... go fetch some water."

"Thank you." She stood so that he could, and then he bowed his head a little on instinct before slipping out of the fourth row of seats. He should not leave her alone, he thought, but he needed a moment to think. He waited in a queue out in the theatre lobby and paid a few pounds for some strangle little bottles of water, and by the time he made his way back into the theatre, he could tell he'd made a mistake in leaving.

The young man seated to Victoria's right was chatting with her. She looked a little uneasy, but she smiled a bit and nodded. The young man seemed to be accompanied by his parents, and he was rather brazenly flirting with Victoria. Melbourne frowned and made his way back down the row, and the young man said confidently,

"Keeping your daughter company, sir. Just chatting theatre."

"Daughter." Melbourne shook his head, and suddenly the young man looked rather embarrassed. He cleared his throat and said lightly to Victoria,

"In any case, yeah. The Lion King. Les Mis. Book of Mormon. They're all ace. See a few more whilst you're here."

He turned away then, quickly engaging his own father in conversation. Melbourne sank into his seat and opened both bottles of water by unscrewing the lids, then handed one to Victoria and waited for her to sip before he did. She glanced over to the young man and said softly to Melbourne,

"I don't think he meant -"

"He thought I was your father. It was a common joke back home, too, Ma'am."

She stared straight into his green eyes then and sipped from her water again, and she whispered,

"If you were my father, I would not long for you the way I do."

"Well. That's good to know, Ma'am," Melbourne muttered, trying not to smirk at her. The lights went back down then, and the orchestra kicked back up, and the show resumed. The second half was more depressing than the first, and as the show went on, it became clear that the Phantom was going to die alone and deserted. When that came to pass, his unmasked figure vanishing as Christine ran away with Raoul, Melbourne felt a pit form in his stomach. Still, he managed to applaud at the end of the show, and Victoria seemed just as thrilled as ever.

"I suppose we ought to get some dinner," she said as they filtered outside with the crowd. They found a place that looked upscale, waited ten minutes in silence to be seated, and then Melbourne pulled Victoria's chair out for her. He pushed her in and sat opposite her, accepting a menu from the waiter.

"What would you like, Ma'am?"

"I believe women place their own orders here, Lord M," she said. "I've seen them do it."

He cocked up an eyebrow and nodded. "Quite so. You administer an entire nation. You're certainly more than capable of ordering your own food."

"It does make me wonder... if women are granted so much freedom here, why did we not have it at home?" Victoria studied the menu more closely, and Melbourne said carefully,

"Progress takes time, Ma'am. Perhaps a hundred and seventy years."

The waiter came then, and Victoria ordered herself some red wine with duck and cherry compote. Melbourne just nodded and told the waiter he'd have the same, and then he folded his hands on the table as they waited. He stared at Victoria through the flickering light of the candle in the centre of the table, some of the only candlelight he'd seen in this time, and then she looked very familiar. He was used to seeing her cast in the shadow of firelight; it was foreign to have their unnatural lighting all over her.

He was riding beside her then, through the gardens at Windsor and Buckingham. She was barging in on him at Dover House. They were sitting before the portrait of Elizabeth I. She was throwing a ball for Dash. All of that existed in his mind and nowhere else, and as he flicked his eyes down her chest, over her tiny little dress, he whispered,

"We must find a way back."

"I do not want to go back," Victoria insisted. Melbourne sighed and reached for her fingers, twining them with his, and he murmured,

"This is not our home, Ma'am. You have a reign to return to. You are the queen of England, not just a woman in a restaurant."

"Here I am yours, I think," Victoria said, surprising Melbourne and making his heart race a little. She tipped her head and dragged her fingertips over his palm. "Am I not yours here, Lord M?"

"You are not mine, Ma'am, because you are my queen and I am your prime minister."

"Not here." Victoria looked around the restaurant and slowly pulled her hand back. When the wine came, he let her drink first. When the duck came, he let her cut into hers before he took a bite. She paused and informed him, "You needn't observe those rules here, Lord M."

"I think I should," he replied, swallowing hard. Victoria rubbed the last of her red lipstick off with her napkin and sipped at her wine, and she informed him,

"I like to walk down the street holding your hand."

He did not answer her. He could not. He wanted to tell her that nothing in all the world had felt better than putting his arms around her in the dark dance club, that staring at her here at this table was heaven. He just ate his food, setting his fork and knife down as soon as she did. They skipped dessert; both of them were palpably eager to return to the hotel.

* * *

The cab ride back to the Corinthia was tense and quiet. Melbourne covered Victoria's hand with his, and she thought distantly that if they were going to pretend to be married, perhaps they ought to have rings. She stared at their hands for most of the ride, trying to ignore the terrifying way the driver was weaving through other cars. When they arrived at the Corinthia, Melbourne hurried to her door before the driver could, and he held his hand out to her. She remembered the way he'd done this on other occasions, the way he'd stood before her carriage with his hand out and a little smile on his face. He was not smiling now.

Victoria held his hand all the way up the lift and down the corridor, and she watched as he slid their key into the lock and opened the door. She followed him inside, and then she felt profoundly nervous. They both knew what she wanted. Did he want it, too?

"Well, I quite enjoyed the show," Melbourne said in a stilted voice, crouching near the chair and bending to untie his shoes.

"As did I," Victoria nodded. "We ought to avail ourselves of more nighttime entertainment, since our time here will be so short."

"What else did you have in mind?" Melbourne stood and raised his eyes to her, and Victoria shrugged.

"I might like to go dancing again. Their way of dancing."

Half his mouth quirked up, and he scratched a little at his hair. "As you wish, Ma'am."

"Lord M." She straightened her back and pulled a little at the hem of her short black dress. She cleared her throat and felt nerves strike her through. Then she remembered the way he'd taught her to stay steady and calm in even the most unnerving situations, and she said firmly, "I am a virgin."

Melbourne tipped his head and shut his eyes. He licked at his bottom lip and murmured, "Yes. I believe I was aware, Ma'am."

"I do not care about whatever husband I may have in our time. Here I am Victoria Lamb, am I not? Mrs Victoria Lamb. That's what the woman downstairs said."

"Your Majesty. That's just make-believe." Melbourne sounded desperate then, but Victoria barreled on,

"I should like to test out their condoms and see if they are as interesting as we think."

"Your Majesty," Melbourne said again, reaching for her shoulders and pushing her hair back a little. His hands seemed to move on their own then, his face looking conflicted even as he pulled at the straps of her little dress. Victoria wriggled until she could pull it down, and then she stood before him in nothing but the undergarment they called a bra and the tiny drawers they called knickers. He just stared, unabashed and wide-eyed, and Victoria moved smoothly to pull her bra around to the front and unclasp it. She dropped it to the ground, and Melbourne's lips parted as her breasts were bared to him. He let out a little helpless sound and took a step toward her, cradling her face in his hands and bending to gently kiss her.

It felt so good that her knees almost gave out. His lips moved carefully against hers, and his hands stroked her cheeks so affectionately that Victoria moaned. She started to unbutton his shirt, and he did not protest. She pushed it off his shoulders and he wormed his way out of it, edging Victoria nearer to the bed as he kept on kissing her. She slithered up onto the bed and slid out of her knickers, and Melbourne muttered,

"I need the instructions. I don't know how... are you certain? Are you very -"

"I could not be more certain, Lord M," Victoria said solemnly. He shut his eyes and nodded, and he turned to walk quickly to the bathroom. She could hear him stripping off his trousers, and then she heard him open the little box of condoms. She lay on her back and stared at the ceiling, thinking that she ought to be a good deal more afraid right now than she was.

It would hurt. Lehzen had informed her of that. The first time only, it hurt. Victoria reckoned she could bear that, so long as she was with Lord M. She reached between her legs and played with herself a little, feeling the way she'd flushed wet just from him kissing her.

He came walking back out of the bathroom then, utterly naked and making Victoria feel dizzy.

"It looks ridiculous," he protested, "but I can see how it works."

She stared without shame at his manhood, which looked pale from the thin coating of the condom over it. She asked him tentatively,

"Will it still feel good... for you?"

He smirked. "I suppose I'll have to let you know afterward, Ma'am."

He stalked up onto the bed and perched himself over her, staring down into her eyes and then bending to kiss her again. He was so slow, so careful, that it drove Victoria mad. She finally reached for his face and encouraged him to kiss her harder. His hand went to her breast and squeezed a little, his thumb dragging over her nipple. Her knees were being pushed apart then, and there was a sudden invasion that ripped and tore and made Victoria yelp against his mouth.

"Are you all right?" He seemed breathless, freezing with his cock inside of her. Victoria wrenched her eyes shut at the feel of him swollen and hard inside of her. She nodded desperately, reaching for his hips and encouraging him to move. He started to slowly pump his hips, his mouth going round as his eyes glassed over. Victoria instinctively brought her knees up a little, holding his torso between her legs as she realised just what she'd given him. He had been so hesitant to take it, but he did not hesitate now. He moved more quickly, cycling his hips and whispering,

"Oh. It feels just fine, Ma'am."

"Lord M." Victoria dragged her fingers over his bare chest, over his toned arms and up his neck until she held his face again. He crushed her mouth with hers and grunted loudly, and then his lips were beside her ear.

"I stand very little chance of lasting tonight, I'm afraid."

She did not know what he meant, so she just replied, "It's all right."

She wrapped her legs all the way around him and snaked her arms around his shoulders as he buried his face into the crook of his neck and thrust his hips harder than ever. It still hurt a little. It stung and pulled. But it also felt very good, deeply good, and Victoria kissed Melbourne's shoulder as she whispered to him,

"I like it, Lord M."

"Mmph." He kissed desperately at her neck then, and suddenly his hips went still. She could feel him twitching inside of her, could feel the way he was finding his pleasure, and for a brief moment, she panicked. This was how men put a child on a woman. But then she remembered the little device they had here, the condom that allowed this act to be purely recreational, and she sighed with relief. Melbourne slid out of her and murmured,

"I have to go take it off quickly, I think."

"All right," Victoria replied breathlessly. She huffed a few breaths, her fingers going between her legs and feeling the little spatter of blood that Lehzen had warned her about. She would take a rain shower in the bath tub once Melbourne had finished, she thought. She listened to the running of the water in the basin and knew he was cleaning himself up, and after a long while, he silently came out and pulled on some clean pyjamas.

"I ought not to have done that," he muttered, "but I did not have the strength to resist."

Victoria sat up and demanded indignantly, "Are you suggesting I coerced you?"

"No, Ma'am." Melbourne turned from the wardrobe and dragged his fingers over his head. "I have wanted that for longer than I dare say."

Victoria made her way from the bed, tender and sore, and tuned on the shower spigot in the bathroom. As she stood under the hot water, she realised what would happen when they went home. She would lose her Lord M. That was the history these people knew. She would marry Albert, just like her Uncle Leopold wanted, and she would bear one child after another. She would have a long reign without him, without her beloved Lord M. He would fade away from her within the year.

No, Victoria thought, tears streaming down her cheeks alongside the hot water. No. She would not allow such a thing. If they had to go back - which she remained unconvinced about in the first place - then the history these people knew would have to change. Victoria would make her own history, and she would have Melbourne beside her when she did.

 **Author's Note: Well, she finally got to try out a condom. Ha. Thank you so much for reading and PLEASE do leave a quick review or comment if you get a moment. I know I update very, very quickly, but I do value feedback immensely. Thanks!**


	7. Chapter 7

"I think I should sell it." Victoria stared at the diamond bracelet in her hand. It had been an heirloom of the royalty in her own time, so it wasn't truly hers to sell. But it would undoubtedly fetch them tens of thousands of pounds in this time. She turned over her shoulder, and as Melbourne buttoned up his shirt, he shrugged and said,

"We still have plenty of money, Ma'am. Months' worth. And there's... well, I did a little research on my iPhone about credit cards. They say they have a credit card on file here. When I went downstairs today to add twenty days to our reservation, they said that 'the card cleared without a problem.' So I did not have to pay for that in notes. I only wish I knew who had put the credit card here in the first place."

"Well, until we know," Victoria said, rotating the diamond bracelet a little, "I'll keep this in the safe. It would buy us more time."

"But we are trying to get home," he said very firmly from behind her. Victoria sighed and put the bracelet into the safe. They'd spent the day at the library again, searching through shelves of books in an unsuccessful search for anything resembling the book that had sent them here. They'd managed to complete a search on Melbourne's iPhone for the book, just before the iPhone had lost its life. They'd figured out how to use a cord to breathe life back into the device, and then they'd come to the realisation that there had never been any such book as _The Perils of Modernity_. Whatever force had planted it in Victoria's library had created it, it seemed.

Now Victoria had pulled on a flared-skirt blue dress, a new confection she'd bought at a shop near the hotel. She stepped into her high heeled black shoes and murmured quietly,

"I will not marry Albert."

"I do not suppose we ought to discuss that until we are home again," Melbourne said, almost angrily. She turned to frown at him, and as he played with the cuff of his shirt, he shook his head and said gently, "I have no desire to argue with you, Ma'am."

That was fair enough, Victoria supposed. They'd argued before, the two of them, and it had never ended well. There was no room here for discord. They needed to stick together. She knew how he felt; he thought that she would need to go home and live the life story they'd read about on the mysterious new devices. Victoria knew in her mind that she would not do it. But she would not argue.

She used her comb to pull her long hair into a sleek, gathered style atop her head that she'd seen some women wearing. Her hair seemed so very long for this time, and she said from the bathroom,

"Perhaps I ought to cut my hair to be more like theirs."

Melbourne appeared at the doorway and shook his head.

"Do you not think Miss Skerrett will wonder what's happened to your hair when you go home, Ma'am?"

There he was again, saying things that made her unhappy. Victoria pinched her lips and arranged her hair into the high style, which fell long and smooth down her back, and she asked,

"How do I look?"

"Beautiful," Melbourne said simply, surprising Victoria. He seemed a little sheepish then as he whispered, "You're always beautiful."

She stared into his green eyes and remembered dancing with him at her Coronation Ball. The feel of his hands on her then had been far more intoxicating than the Champagne. She'd wanted him that night, so very badly. Now she had him. She had him nearby. She'd awoken curled up against him. She'd had him inside of her the night before. Somehow, it still wasn't enough.

"I want to go back to that dancing club," she said. "The... the disco, they call it. I want to go back there and dance with you."

"I'll need more than a little whiskey before I can move like that, Ma'am," Melbourne smiled, and she nodded.

"Good. Lots of whiskey, then."

* * *

He was two tumblers of whiskey and two bottles of beer into the night before Victoria finally took his hand and slurred,

"Enough waiting and drinking. I want to dance with you."

Melbourne let himself be pulled off the stool at the bar, and he plopped down some cash to cover the cost of their drinks. Victoria stumbled a little as she made her way through the loud space to the crowded dance floor. This wasn't like any dancing Melbourne had ever done. These people were either moving entirely alone, swaying rather awkwardly to the beat of the thudding music, or gyrating against one another in a sort of simulated sex act. This was nothing like a waltz.

Victoria slid her arms up around Melbourne, like a few of the other women had done to men far younger than him. He put his own hands on her waist and dared to slide his fingers around to her backside, shocked by his own gall. Victoria's eyes went wide, but she nodded and took a half step toward him. She started to move, flush with his body, her own slithering motions making everything come alive inside of him.

"I love you," he whispered, knowing that she couldn't hear him. He wasn't even sure why he'd said it to himself. Perhaps something about the bright lights or the pounding music or the alcohol had pulled the words out of him. But Victoria shook her head in confusion, and as they moved, Melbourne bent down and said right beside her ear, "I am in love with you."

He did not pull away, but he felt her breath quicken on his cheek. Her arms tightened around him, and for some reason he put his mouth to hers right there in front of everyone. No one seemed to notice, much less care, that he was curling his tongue into her mouth and pulling her bottom lip between his teeth. Finally he stood up, dizzy and drunk and confused, and he shut his eyes and just listened to the music.

Her hands were all over him then. She was petting his chest, rubbing at his hip, and he wanted her so badly he could hardly breathe. She could not marry Albert. They would go home somehow, and she would be dressed up in her corsets and gowns and she would walk down the aisle of a church to marry her cousin Albert.

He could not let that happen.

Now that he had had her, he had no idea whatsoever how he was meant to let her go.

"Why didn't you stop me... after the fourth drink?" Victoria moaned pitifully and staggered into the hotel bathroom. She gagged a little and thought she might be sick, thinking distantly that at least their flushing toilets would allow her to quickly rid herself of the vomit. She gagged again and gripped the edge of the toilet, feeling the room spin.

"I'm sorry," she heard him say from behind her. "I ought... ought to have far more control than that."

She turned and looked at him over her shoulder, and she asked in a blurry voice,

"Were you... afraid of dancing?"

"Yes," he admitted. Victoria smiled weakly.

"I think you did a marvelous job of it, Lord M."

A half hour later, they'd managed to squirm out of their clothes and get pyjamas on, and Victoria pulled herself up against Melbourne's bare chest, singing quietly against his skin,

" _The North Wind doth blow, and we shall have snow, and what will the robin do then? Poor thing..._ "

She trailed off, far too drunk to continue, and finally she heard Melbourne's gravelly voice finish the nursery rhyme.

" _He'll sit in a barn and keep himself warm and hide his head under his wing. Poor thing._ "

"Did you mean it?" Victoria murmured, remembering distantly the way he'd bent down and said something very significant in the dance club. She'd kept moving against him, sure she'd heard him wrong. Now he did not answer her. He just stroked at her hair and kissed her forehead, and he said very gently,

"Even when we go home, Ma'am, I shall stay by your side as long as I am able."

"Forever, then," Victoria said, shutting her eyes. Melbourne did not answer that at all, and she knew he'd drifted off to sleep, carried away by the alcohol and the dancing and the night.

When she woke, it was still cerulean outside, not quite dawn. She sat up slowly, her head pounding like a war drum. She was desperately thirsty, so she went to the bathroom and filled up a little glass with water from the basin. She drank four glasses' worth, far more thirsty than she'd anticipated being. The water was clean and cold, and Victoria could not get enough of it. After awhile, she went back out into the bedroom and saw Melbourne propped up on one elbow. He nodded at her and said in a bleary voice,

"Good morning, Your Majesty. I meant what I said."

Her mouth fell open, and she trembled a little where she stood. She just nodded and whispered,

"You know I have loved you for a long while now. I can not go home and pretend otherwise."

"I know," he said simply. Victoria crawled slowly into the bed and let him kiss her cheek, and he lamented,

"I only wish I'd been sober when I'd told you."

"You're sober now," Victoria said, and Melbourne scratched his hair as he smirked,

"Sort of, Ma'am."

She laughed a little and stroked at his scruffy face. "Will you say it now anyway?"

"I do love you." He shut his eyes and seemed to be envisioning something. "I knew it the last time you and I rode out together. I could feel it then, deep in my veins, but I couldn't say it. I could never say it there. I could never, ever tell you at home. Not ever."

"But we are not at home," Victoria whispered, and Melbourne opened his eyes as he agreed,

"No, Ma'am. We are somewhere else entirely. We are among iPhones and Black Cabs and the worst sort of dancing, and so I think I have the liberty to think it. To say it."

"I will not marry Albert," Victoria insisted, not caring if she sparked a fight. But he did not argue. He just licked his bottom lip and nodded once.

"All right, Ma'am."

 **Author's Note: Oh, dear. It seems like they've hit a bit of a turning point. They're getting awfully comfortable in the modern world, and awfully comfortable with one another, and awfully uncomfortable with the biography Victoria is known to have had. Will they ever wind up back in 1839, and if so, how will Victoria change her destiny? Thanks as always for reading. This is the last update for a little while, so please do review if you get a quick moment.**


	8. Chapter 8

_Even after Melbourne resigned permanently in August 1841, Victoria continued to write to him, but eventually the correspondence ceased as it was seen as inappropriate._ _It has been observed that Melbourne's role faded as Victoria came to rely on her new husband, Prince Albert. Melbourne survived, though weakened, after suffering a stroke fourteen months after his departure from politics. In retirement, he lived at Melbourne Hall, Derbyshire. Melbourne died on 24 November 1848_ _and was buried at St Etheldreda's Church, Hatfield, Hertfordshire_.

Victoria stared at the iPhone in her hand and felt herself begin to tremble perilously. She nearly dropped the device, but managed to set it slowly down. She'd made an awful mistake, she thought, in opening up the biography of herself and touching Melbourne's name.

1848\. He would fade from her life and then die in 1848. If they went to Hatfield now, she wondered, would she see his grave there? Would his bones be beneath the earth there?

"Your Majesty?"

She turned her head, knowing that tears were streaming down her cheeks. He was already dressed; they were meant to go on a tourist's excursion to Windsor Castle today. The last three days had passed with them scouring the city for clues - anything that might lead them to find their way home. But Victoria did not want to go home, now less than ever. She pushed the iPhone away across the bathroom counter and swiped at her eyes.

"I am missing my little Dash," she lied. "That's all."

Melbourne gave her a very knowing look and tipped his head. "You know, it might be very strange to see Windsor swarming with visitors. The places we know so well, the gardens where we rode out together... I am not sure, Ma'am, if I want to see these people crawling all over them. We needn't go on the tour unless you truly want to."

"I want to," she whispered. She scoffed then and reminded him, "I've never liked Windsor; how much worse could they make it?"

Melbourne could obviously tell that something was still amok, so he smoothly reached for the iPhone and picked it up. Victoria wanted to stop him, but his eyes scanned over the same backlit words she'd just read herself. Half his mouth turned up, and he said gently,

"A stroke fourteen months after leaving politics. And here I've spent these last years thinking that retirement would mean an easy, comfortable life."

"We can never go back, Lord M," Victoria whispered. "I like it here."

"Do you, Ma'am?" Melbourne tucked the iPhone into his back pocket and took her face gently in his hands. He bent and touched his lips to hers, and he whispered, "I like you here. You are so much less restricted. Fewer rules binding you in."

"Fewer corsets binding me in, too," Victoria joked half-heartedly. Melbourne's hands slid down over her chest and stomach and traced over her torso, as if making her point about corsets. He touched her carefully through her thin black top, and Victoria tipped her head back a little.

"We shall be late for the train, Ma'am," Melbourne said, but just the same he leaned down and pushed his mouth against her neck. Victoria gasped and put her hands straight to the waistband of his jeans. They'd scarcely put a hand on one another these last few days, and the instance of him claiming her seemed like a faraway dream, almost as far away as home. Somehow, Victoria managed to push gently on Melbourne's chest, and she smiled weakly,

"I want to see the train."

He nodded, dragging his thumb over his bottom lip, and he murmured, "Later, perhaps."

Victoria grinned. "Most definitively, Lord M. Later."

* * *

The train was fascinating. It moved so smoothly, so swiftly, that Melbourne found himself entirely entranced by it. He stared out the window with Victoria's hands in his, and he watched cityscape and then countryside whizz by them. They passed what seemed to be neighborhoods, though they only scarcely resembled the crowded poor areas of London he'd know. Soon enough they were passing what someone else called Heathrow Airport. Melbourne watched as great metal beasts soared up into the sky. He'd seen them overhead and had been frightened of them at first, but now they were mesmerising.

"Where you do suppose they go?" Victoria asked from beside him, and Melbourne said,

"I saw an advertisement for flights to Jamaica. Flights to China. You can get anywhere in less than a day. Anywhere in the entire world, it seems."

"I want to fly on one," Victoria said firmly. "Someday, Lord M, we shall fly on one of those. We will go to Jamaica."

Melbourne squeezed her hand a little and tried not to tell her that she was making plans for a world where they could not stay. She was plotting a future they could never have. He just stroked at her fingers with his and watched the airport's activities until they'd passed that, too.

Soon enough, they were changing trains and zooming even more quickly to a station that was allegedly a ten minute walk from Windsor Castle. Everything had built up around here, and it only vaguely resembled the pastoral world Melbourne had known. As they walked up to the castle, he noted the signs for tourists, the way everything seemed commercialised and bottled and packaged.

"The new queen still lives here?" Victoria shook her head. "I can not imagine letting so many visitors barge into my home."

"It seems to me as though they now view anything that is property of the Crown to first and foremost be property of the people," Melbourne said. "The queen now is a figurehead, a symbol, but the physical trappings of the monarchy are a thoroughly public affair."

Victoria said nothing to that, throwing one of her twin long braids over her shoulder as they walked the long gravel path up to the castle. She paused for a moment and looked around, and she told him,

"We were here a month ago. A month and a hundred and seventy years, but... you were in your Windsor Uniform, and we were having dinner with Mama, and..."

Her eyes welled a little then, and she blinked quickly as she looked him up and down. She tried to smile, and she said,

"I quite like you in your Windsor Uniform, Lord M, but I also quite like you in jeans."

He glanced down at himself. "So I am not spitting on protocol by entering this castle so shoddily dressed, Ma'am? Can you imagine, if you'd seen me come sauntering into Windsor Castle in these clothes last month?"

She took a very deep breath and whispered, "Quite a lot has changed."

"So it has," Melbourne nodded. He reached carefully for her hand and brought it to his lips, and he kept his head bowed as he said very seriously, "Your Majesty."

He was reminding them both of what this place was, of who they were, and Victoria seemed a little breathless. She did not release his hand, instead walking solemnly with him up to the building. They'd decided to take a small group tour, which meant they got to budge the enormous queue to enter. Melbourne listened carefully as the tour guide explained how old the castle was, how long it had been continuously inhabited, and that the current queen frequently came on weekends. They walked into the main entrance of the castle, and immediately were greeted by a portrait of a courtier in the full Windsor uniform. Melbourne nudged his queen and smirked up at the portrait, and the tour guide said cheerfully,

"Has anyone got any idea what the man in that painting is wearing?"

Melbourne waited, but nobody said anything, so he answered in a cheeky voice,

"It's extraordinarily hot, and very heavy, and worn by unfortunate men at the beck and call of their monarch here at Windsor. It's the Uniform."

"You sound as though you have some experience with it," the tour guide smiled. Melbourne thought fast and shrugged,

"Wore one on stage once."

"Ah. Well, you're certainly right. All that gold braiding was immensely heavy, so the modern day Windsor Uniform is much lighter, red-facing jacket that used to be called the Undress. The heavy braided jackets have not been worn here at Windsor in decades."

"What an abominable shame," Victoria said bitingly, and a few of the other tour guests turned to stare at her curiously. The guide seemed a little confused but carried on, taking them through roped-off spaces and narrow corridors that looked mostly familiar with a few changes. They came to the Grand Staircase, and then the tour guide began pointing out its features. Finally she said,

"Over here is a statue of Queen Victoria with her collie, Sharp. Of course, a far more prominent statue of Victoria can be found at the foot of the castle hill outside. Be sure to take a peek if you didn't get a glimpse on your way in; it truly is a magnificent statue."

The group started to move on, but Victoria called,

"Did they like her? The people? Did they... were they fond of her?"

"Of Queen Victoria?" The tour guide seemed perplexed, but she answered, "She is one of the most significant monarchs in British history. I think people do look fondly upon her, although, of course, because the Empire spread so vastly under her rule, many around the world do not think kindly of her reign. Still, how often do we say the word 'Victorian' about clothing or style or architecture or literature? What is undeniable is her influence. Now, let us continue into the State Apartments. Right this way, everyone."

Victoria stayed where she was, and Melbourne could hardly blame her. They let the group move on, and then they wandered silently through the parts of the castle where visitors were allowed. Victoria's eyes were blank and distant as she stepped into St George's Hall, where the two of them had attended many a formal dinner. The visitors all gasped and ogled, taking photos whilst grinning and holding up two fingers in a V shape. The pageantry was all lost. The magic of this place, no matter what Victoria had ever thought of it, was lost, and she whispered as she stood in the centre of the enormous space,

"I think we ought to walk back to the train, Lord M."

"Yes, Ma'am." He released her hand and waited for her to leave, following her obediently as he desperately tried to stay present. He pushed past the crowds in the corridors that he had always thought of as lonely. He watched Victoria walk in her own knee-length grey skirt and black top, and then he could see her - braids down around her ears, diamond crown around her head, swishing silk gown. No matter what games of make believe they played, that was who she was.

She was the queen, and they needed to go home.

* * *

Victoria stood in the little shop in the hotel lobby and placed three 32-packs of lubricated condoms on the counter before her. The shop girl smirked to herself but said nothing, and Victoria refused to be embarrassed. If they found their way home, she wanted to be prepared. She would have bought more, but that was all the shop had. She'd buy more somewhere else, she decided.

"You know, I've got the arm implant," the girl scanning the condoms said. "You have to use backup for a little while, but it lasts for years and I've got no periods on it."

Victoria looked frantically around the store. "Arm implant. You mean... to prevent conception?"

"Yeah." The girl grinned, putting the condoms into two bags, apparently for discretion, and she gestured out the window. "The community contraception clinic down the street, they'll put it in, no questions asked."

"Does it hurt?" Victoria asked. "Can you see it?"

The girl peeled up her sleeve and shrugged. "I've had no problems, like I said. Goes on the inside of the arm. It's a lot easier than condoms, so long as you're not afraid of any STIs, you know?"

"STIs," Victoria repeated helplessly. The girl narrowed her eyes and whispered,

"Catholic school?"

"I had... an unconventional education," Victoria said carefully, and the girl nodded knowingly.

"Homeschool. Gotcha. Right, well... just my advice. I've had a good experience. The clinic's just down the road."

"Thank you." Victoria passed over her cash and nodded frantically. "Thank you."

Melbourne was out in the lobby waiting, and she walked by him so quickly that he looked baffled. As she rushed out the front doors of the Corinthia, he called,

"What's the matter, Ma'am?"

"I am getting an arm implant," Victoria said over her shoulder, and Melbourne scowled as he demanded,

"Pardon me, Ma'am, but... you're doing what?"

He didn't seem to understand until they were in the waiting room of the community contraception clinic. Victoria had already urinated into a cup and had blood drawn out of her arm with a needle so that the medical staff could run some sort of testing, and poor Melbourne looked as though he wanted to be absolutely anywhere other than where he was. He stared down at the bags of condoms Victoria had bought, and he most certainly understood why she was doing what she was, but he still seemed so uncomfortable that she thought he might burst.

"Lamb? Victoria Lamb?" A friendly-looking nurse called from the doorway, and Victoria rushed up, leaving Melbourne behind with the bags of condoms. She followed the nurse into an exam room, where she was asked all manner of questions about her so-called 'sexual history.'

"And how many partners have you had in your lifetime?"

"Partners. You mean... with how many men have I...?" Victoria went red-faced, and the nurse shrugged.

"Or women, or anyone in between. Any sexual partners at all."

"One," Victoria said firmly. The nurse gave a little smile down to her chart, and she said confidently,

"You're negative for pregnancy, and your STI panel was clear. We don't have an NHS card on file for you, but our computers are flaky today. We'll be in contact if there's a registration problem. We can go ahead and place the implant today. You may have a little irregularity with periods for a few months, and then you may lose them entirely."

"That sounds very convenient," Victoria mused, and the nurse smiled. She pulled out a device and carefully peeled back Victoria's sleeve. She used a little cloth that smelled strongly of alcohol to rub and scrub at the skin on the inside of her arm, and then she held the device up and waited until it beeped a few times. Then she pressed a button, and there was a sharp pinching sensation. The nurse studied the site and nodded.

"Good. That went in nicely. Use backup for a few weeks."

"Backup. You mean condoms," Victoria said, and the nurse winked.

"You already knew that bit; saw your shopping out in the waiting room. Smart girl. You'll be just fine. No babies for you for a few years at minimum. Have a good day, love."

* * *

"Does it hurt?" Melbourne asked carefully, the same way Victoria had done to the girl in the convenience shop. She shook her head and then finally admitted,

"It's a little achy. I suspect that will pass."

"We still don't have a way home," he reminded her. He stopped in front of the hotel and shook his head. "Even if we did, you'll have to... you saw the biographies, Ma'am. I die, and you go on magnificently."

"No. I will not accept those biographies." Victoria stormed into the hotel, pushing the door open roughly and bustling past the poor doorman. She jammed on the button to call the lift, and Melbourne realised she'd become entirely too comfortable here.

"You are losing yourself, Ma'am," he said softly, and Victoria scowled over her shoulder and she stomped into the lift.

"Me? I am losing myself? No, Lord M. I have finally found myself." She pushed the number five on the panel of the lift, and they began to rise in silence. He could see her reflection from three sides in the mirrored lift - the way her two long braids looked so different from the hair she'd always worn, the way her skirt and top left so little to the imagination. She was comfortable here. She liked it here. So did he, if he was honest with himself. But if he was honest, he knew they could not stay.

"Who is Sharp, Ma'am?" He asked softly, and Victoria frowned at the lift buttons. She said nothing, so Melbourne folded his hands before him and murmured, "Dash won't live forever. Dogs never do. You'll have a collie named Sharp, and they'll make a marble statue of you with him and put it in Windsor Castle. But you don't even know that dog yet, Ma'am, because you haven't lived your life. And you must live your life."

"I will not marry Albert and have nine children and lose you in less than a decade's time." Victoria walked quickly out of the lift, waiting impatiently at the door of their room for Melbourne to come and slide the key inside. He felt something snap within him, as if he needed to slap some sense into the both of them. He pushed the door open and took a shaking sigh, deciding that he wanted her and feeling entirely unable to fight the sensation off. As soon as he shut the door, he had whirled her around and pushed her against it, and Victoria gasped at the way his hands roughly went up her skirt and yanked down on her knickers.

"Is this what you want, Ma'am?" His voice was cracking, he knew, but Victoria nodded frantically and whispered,

"Yes."

"Fine." Melbourne kissed roughly at her neck, yanked up her top and pawed so fiercely at her breasts that she whimpered. He couldn't stop; he needed her. He needed her right now. He bent down just long enough to reach into the shopping bags from the convenience store, and he worked quickly to pull a wrapped condom out of one of the boxes. Victoria's fingers worked at the placket of his jeans, unbuttoning them and pulling down the closure that was apparently called a zip. She pulled him out and started to fondle him, staring into his eyes with her lips alluringly parted.

"Please, Lord M," she murmured, and his own fingers shook like mad as he carefully tore at the condom wrapper. He managed to slide it onto his hardened cock and roll it down, shoving his jeans down a bit and wrenching Victoria's skirt up.

"Wrap your legs round me." He grunted as he hoisted her by her waist, and she snared her legs around him as her arms snaked around his shoulders. He started to thrust at once, ignoring the way her body thudded against the door with every push. Victoria tipped her head against the doorway and moaned, and Melbourne leaned forward to latch straight onto her neck.

Suddenly all there was was this. The marble statue of the long-dead queen in Windsor was gone. All there was was the young woman against the door with her arms around him, whispering that she loved him, kissing him back when he put his mouth to hers. Suddenly the biographies from the iPhones had faded into obvlivion, replaced by the way she felt around his manhood, the way she smelled, the way she tasted. Melbourne had been in love before, but never quite like this. He'd been physical with women before, but never anything approaching this. He kissed her harder that ever, so hard that she squealed for mercy, and when he pulled back, he was overcome by the sensation of his climax washing over him like a wave.

He held her there, pinned to the door, for a short moment, knowing he had to get the condom off so that he wouldn't leak inside of her. He kept his eyes locked onto hers and cupped her jaw as he lowered her, and as he stepped back, he said in a voice full of wonder,

"Victoria."

He'd never called her that, not to her face, not in any context like this, and her eyes rimmed red at once. She just nodded, and he walked silently into the bathroom. He shut the door most of the way and pulled off the condom, tying it up and tossing it into the rubbish bin in a wad of paper. He used a washcloth to wash himself off, and then he heard Victoria's voice say from outside the bathroom door,

"Lord M? I think you need to come see this... now."

He hurried to tuck himself away and do up the zip and button, and as he walked out into the hotel room, his eyes locked onto the bed. Victoria was staring at it as if a dead body were lying there, but it was so much worse than that.

It was a little red copy of _The Perils of Modernity_.

 **Author's Note: *Gasp!* So they appear to have their way home. Do they want it? Will they use it? If they go home, will they ever come back to modern times? Will history get rewritten? So many questions. Sorry for the cliffhanger, folks. I promise to update again as soon as humanly possible. I have a *very* bad case of bacterial pneumonia that went misdiagnosed, so at present I'm trying to stay out of the hospital. Luckily, that means I'm consigned to bed, so I may be able to write another chapter later if I feel up to it. I appreciate your patience, readership, and feedback. :)**


	9. Chapter 9

"I do not want to go."

"Please just let me touch you, Ma'am."

Melbourne pulled her back against him, cradling her in his arms and reaching to pull up the hem of her skirt. He might never touch her here again, he realised as her folds went wet beneath his fingertips. She turned her head and he kissed her carefully, his eyes flicking up to the little red book he'd put on the table beside the bed.

"I want to... to stay here, Lord M," Victoria whispered against his lips, her voice broken even as her breath quickened. He twisted two fingers into her and rubbed his thumb in a circle, breathing in the feel of her and saying again,

"Please just let me touch you."

She gave in then, melting against his arms and gasping for breath. He played with her breast, moving her bra aside and thumbing over her nipple as he squeezed and toyed with her. He was hard again, even so soon after the dalliance on the door, but it didn't matter. He just needed to feel her, to touch her, knowing that the world they were returning to would never allow this. He would never be allowed to have her again, so he kissed her jaw as she moaned and came.

"Lord M," she whimpered, and his fingers shook as he pulled them from her body. They sat there for a very long time, just staring out the windows, each of them taking in the sights of the city as the sun went down and the bright lights came up. They watched the cars, the blinking sign over a nearby restaurant, and finally Melbourne murmured,

"I'll help you dress, Ma'am."

"Please, can we stay?" She knew her question was futile, he could tell, so he did not answer her. He waited for her to reluctantly climb off the bed, and he watched without shame as she stripped off her tight black top and her short grey skirt. She peeled off her knickers and bra and set it all aside, staring naked at the pile. Finally she opened the wardrobe on the wall and began pulling out the clothing that now really did seem like the costumes they'd been mistaken for wearing.

Melbourne was silent as he pulled on his cotton underwear, his tan breeches and his high boots, his wispy white shirt and his dark coat. He walked over to the long mirror on the bathroom door and stared. He'd almost gotten used to the sight of himself in jeans, in their collared shirts and their funny shoes. But now he finally recognised himself again, and he gasped a little as he remembered everything he'd done with Victoria. He'd danced with her as if they'd been at a Roman orgy. He'd been drunk with her - on purpose - and had claimed her body more than once.

He turned his face to see that she'd managed to get into her drawers, chemise, and stockings on her own. She was adjusting her corset around her torso, and she said carefully,

"If you could just pull the ties, Lord M..."

He stepped up behind her and sighed, glancing back at the little red book again. He yanked hard on the cords of Victoria's corset, and when she whimpered a little, he asked,

"Too much?"

"No." She held her braids to the front and shook a little then, and he realised at once that she was crying. She did not need to say why. She'd been free here. She'd had him here. In one sense, it seemed ridiculous that they would go back.

"There must be statues of you, Ma'am," he said, pulling again at the ties of her corset. "We could destroy this world by staying here. We could destroy so much without meaning to. I still do not know who meant to put us here, but I am grateful for it just the same."

He ties the cords carefully and turned her around, watching as she knotted her braids up at the back of her head and stuck some of her old pins into them. She was no Miss Skerrett, but it was passable. Melbourne helped her into her petticoats and her flouncy white lace gown, and as he did the buttons up the back, Victoria said again desperately,

"Please, Lord M... let's just stay a little while longer."

"I think our time has more than come, Ma'am," he said in response. He felt his own eyes sear then as he looked out on the street below, as he watched Victoria frantically dump the money out of the leather bag and replace it with razors and hair elastics and condoms. She did up the zip and brought it over her shoulder, and she said sadly,

"Perhaps Dash has missed me."

"I imagine he has, Ma'am," Melbourne said, feeling for the first time in years as though he were going to cry. He scratched at his hair and tried to speak, failed, and stared out the window again. Victoria put her hands to his chest, and finally he whispered, "I do love you."

"Elizabeth had companions, you said," Victoria murmured. "She never married. I won't, either. I shall have a companion, a man whom I adore very fiercely. The man who pulled a stranger off of me in a dark, strange dance club and said that I was with him. The man who brought me a little bottle of water at a show on the West End, who sat beside me on a train, who slept beside me in a hotel, who..."

She stopped then, and Melbourne forced his face down to hers. He cupped her jaw in his hand and kissed her lips as carefully as he could, and he whispered,

"Time to go, Ma'am."

She laced her gloved arm through his, the arm upon which she now wore the diamond bracelet she'd considered selling. She walked with him to the bedside table, and Melbourne slowly picked up the little red copy of _The Perils of Modernity_.

His hands shook like mad as he held it, and he allowed himself one last glance back through the windows, one last gaze down into Victoria's eyes. Then he opened it.

* * *

"Your Majesty?"

Victoria blinked her eyes open, still recovering from the white heat that had taken her over. She began to cry the instant she realised where they were - they were in her library in Buckingham Palace. She collapsed against Melbourne's chest where they stood beside the bookshelf. She looked around frantically for the little red book, but she could not see it anywhere. She started to pound on instinct at Melbourne's chest, and when he tried to take her wrists in his hands, she shoved him roughly away.

"Why?" She nearly screamed the word at him. "Why did you make us come back, Lord M? Why?"

"We had no choice; we could have ruined everything," Melbourne said, too calmly. He picked up the leather bag from the ground, the one that was packed full of smuggled goods from the future, and he quickly shoved it into a cupboard below the bookshelf. He gestured at the cupboard and muttered, "Somehow you'll have to keep the maids from seeing that."

"How could you do this to me?" Victoria looked around the stale, wood-paneled library, and suddenly she longed for the thumping nightclub, for the brightly-illuminated community clinic, even. She wanted to be in a lift, on a train. She wanted to be in the hotel with him, with her Lord M. She stared up at him and saw sorrow in his green eyes, and he shrugged as he whispered,

"It was only a very strange dream, Ma'am."

"No, Lord Melbourne. It was a great deal more than that." Victoria reached under the bookshelf and yanked the leather bag from the cupboard, cradling it in her arms and reckoning that if anyone wanted to question her on it, they could find the courage to do so.

* * *

He stayed that night at the palace for dinner, as he had so often done. Victoria found herself almost entirely without appetite, only taking a bite or two of each course so that the others at the table could do so. Miss Skerrett had been confounded by Victoria's hair, which Victoria claimed had come undone in the wind. That excuse had made no sense, of course, but Miss Skerrett hadn't complained as she'd done it nicely up for dinner. Mrs Jenkins had seemed confused by how badly tied Victoria's corset had been, but she'd quietly redone it as she'd dressed the queen for the evening.

Now Victoria sat in a scarlet silk gown, remembering the sleeveless red top she'd bought at H&M. She picked at her quail, remembering the bland chicken from the room service menu. She sipped at her wine, remembering the Earl Grey tea cocktail she'd had in the dance club. She raised her eyes to see Melbourne looking just as distracted, and she sighed.

"Drina, are you quite well?" The Duchess of Kent touched worriedly at Victoria's arm, and Victoria just nodded.

"I'm fine, Mama."

"You do not seem fine," countered the Duchess, but Victoria snapped,

"I said I was fine, and so I am fine."

Everyone at the table went a little quiet at that. Three courses into the meal, Victoria found she had no more patience for any of it, and she flew to her feet. Everyone else at the table quickly stood, and Victoria said nothing as she walked briskly from the dining room.

She went into her drawing room and let Dash up onto a divan beside her, petting slowly at him as she stared at the flames in the fireplace. The door opened after a time, and the attendant said,

"The Duchess of Kent."

"No," Victoria said firmly. "Please tell her I am indisposed."

There was a pause, and then a quiet, "Yes, Your Majesty."

Ten minutes later the door opened again, more hesitantly this time, and the attendant said cautiously,

"The Right Honourable Lord Melbourne."

Victoria said nothing, and so Melbourne was granted admission into the room. She could see out of the corner of her eye the way that he was standing, waiting for her to rise and hold out her hand for him to kiss. He was her prime minister, after all, and she was his sovereign, and that was how he had always greeted her. But he had not kissed her hand every time she'd come out of the bathroom in their hotel room, nor when she'd come sauntering out of the lingerie store with bags full of bras and knickers. So now she sat on the divan and pushed gently at her dog.

"Down, Dash," she whispered. She gestured to the empty place beside her, and, still staring into the fire, she said simply, "Sit, Lord M."

"Yes, Ma'am." He walked over and sank down beside her, casting his own eyes into the flames alongside hers. Finally he said, "The Duchess of Kent was so worried that she sent me of all people after you. Never thought that would happen, I must say."

"This morning, I was in a clinic getting a contraceptive implant clicked into my arm with a machine," Victoria mused numbly. "Then you took me against the door. Then you touched me on the bed. You told you loved me."

He was quiet for a long moment, until he finally told her, "I do love you, Ma'am. More than I'll ever be able to properly say, and certainly more than I'll ever be able to properly show."

"We should have stayed," Victoria hissed, turning her eyes to him and knowing her gaze was full of venom. She shook her head wildly and insisted, "I don't care what would have been broken or destroyed. I do not want to be here."

"Here?" Melbourne looked shocked and took her hands in his. "This is home, Victoria."

She tried to ignore the way he'd said her given name again, the way his eyes looked wet, but she could not. She brought his hands to her lips and kissed them, touching her lips all over his knuckles and fingers.

"I want you to go to Brocket Hall tomorrow," she nodded, "and I want you to host me. As your guest."

His eyes darkened. "You can't sneak into my -"

"Why not? We shared a bed night after night, you and I. I will not go back to the way things were," Victoria snapped. Melbourne's face seemed a little sad then, and he said quietly,

"Neither of us can go to Brocket Hall, Ma'am. I have an important vote in the House about which I'd nearly forgotten in the haze of West End shows and whiskey. As for you, your Uncle Leopold is arriving tomorrow or the day after."

"Oh." Victoria shut her eyes and sighed, leaning onto Melbourne's shoulder as she whispered,

"Promise me that you will not fade from me like they said you would."

He hesitated, but then he kissed the top of Victoria's head and replied, "I promise, Ma'am."

 **Author's Note: Oh, dear. Easy to see why Melbourne was concerned about destroying things by staying in the future, but also easy to feel their grief, no? How will they manage to stay close in the 19th century? Will they ever go back to the future? I'm stuck in bed with this pneumonia, and writing is actually a bit of a solace/distraction for me, but I hope quality isn't suffering too badly. Thanks for your readership, and a huge thank you for any feedback.**


	10. Chapter 10

Victoria stared at the ceiling in her bedroom and let the tears stream freely onto her pillow.

There was something very uncomfortably about the lumpy mattress, about her feathered pillows. She wanted the slightly scratchy sheets at the Corinthia. She wanted the shower, the bright lights over the mirror in the bathroom. She pulled herself slowly from bed and walked over to the window, gazing out onto the silent, dark gardens below. She wanted the lights, the cars, the chaos.

He was at Dover House tonight, or at least he should be. Was he as tormented as she was, Victoria wondered? She shut her eyes and remembered the first time he'd taken her, the way he'd whispered against her lips.

 _Are you all right?_

She squeezed her eyes shut harder and felt the pulse of the music in the dance club. She could see the lights, yellow and blue and magenta, flashing against them as the liquor settled into their veins. He'd whispered something then, too, something she couldn't hear, and then he'd put his lips beside her ear.

 _I am in love with you._

"Lord M," Victoria whispered, pressing her hand to the cool glass and wishing harder than ever that they'd just thrown the damned book into the rubbish.

* * *

"The Right Honourable Lord Melbourne."

He walked into her drawing room to find her pacing in a gown of deep purple. She was magnificent, and as he descended to one knee and carefully kissed her hand, Melbourne tried not to remember the feel of her against the hotel room door. He stood slowly and waited for the door to shut behind him.

"My Uncle Leopold wants me to marry my cousin Albert," Victoria said crisply. "I am hardly surprised, of course, given what we'd learnt about my... biography."

"And what did you tell him, Your Majesty?" Melbourne asked, folding his hands before him. Victoria sniffed a little and said,

"I told him that I am only twenty years of age, and that I have a great long while to decide if I will marry, and that I may live a life like our own beloved English Queen Elizabeth."

"I imagine he did not receive those ideas warmly, Ma'am," Melbourne smirked. Victoria tipped her head up.

"He told me I was being childish and petulant, so I told him to go back to Belgium."

Melbourne's eyebrows shot up. "You dismissed him, Ma'am?"

"Well, no." Victoria picked at her skirts and shook her head. "But here is what you must understand, Lord M. I am not going to marry Albert. Our nine children will not spread across the Continent like their histories said. And so I have already destroyed their histories, I think."

Melbourne sighed. "I know you wanted to stay, Ma'am, but -"

"I could have married you there." Victoria's eyes were almost cold for a moment, and then they welled up. Melbourne was in shock where he stood, and his breath shook between his lips as he registered what she'd said.

She could have married him there.

Suddenly she walked over to the drawer of her desk, and she pulled out a little red book. She put it on the desk and stared silently at it for a moment, and then she said,

"I found it last night. In the bag I brought back with me."

Melbourne shook his head as he stared at the book. "You... we... we have no idea if that goes back to the same place or time. Who is even giving us these books, Ma'am?"

"Does it matter?" Her hair had been done in ringlets today, and they shook around her head as she picked up the book. She was about to open it, Melbourne could see, so he dashed over to her and seized her arms in his.

"Put it down," he whispered, but she shook her head and started to peel at the cover. Melbourne covered her fingers with his and leaned down to kiss her lips carefully. "Put it down, Ma'am."

"I would not be queen. I would just be an ordinary woman, eating in restaurants with William Lamb. Walking through Trafalgar Square whilst the cars honked, whilst the bustle of the day surrounded me. I would not marry Albert. I would be with you, Lord M."

He wrenched his eyes shut and shook his head frantically. "And, what? You would leave this country under the rule of the Duke of Cumberland? We can not bounce back and forth at will; Ma'am. You will be lost from this time, or you will -"

"If we go, we are never coming back," Victoria said firmly. She dragged her fingers over the book and then reached with her foot to pull the leather bag from beneath her desk. She bent to pick it up, and she asked meaningfully, "Are you coming with me?"

"Victoria," Melbourne whispered desperately, and she shut her eyes as she reached again for the cover of the book.

"Come with me," she said, and suddenly Melbourne found himself lost once more in the blinding white heat.

* * *

"This is not a hotel room," Victoria said, stepping down the corridor upon which mirrors and framed images had been hung. "This is a flat. An apartment."

"It would seem so, Ma'am." Melbourne followed her through the corridor, past a little bathroom with a compact shower, toilet, and sink combination. They walked past a kitchen, the sort of kitchen they'd seen in restaurants during this time, and then through a minuscule sort of parlour. It was a sleek and stylish looking place, and as Melbourne glanced around, he silently thanked whatever force had willed them into this existence.

"Look." Victoria picked up a card that looked very much like their hotel room key card from a low table in the parlour. Victoria studied it and said, "Visa. William Lamb, it says. What's this?"

She picked up a sheet of paper, which Melbourne studied over her shoulder. It was a receipt, he could see, from the Royal Bank of Scotland. It had some sort of account number on it, and it read "Balance: £6,822,000."

"Over six million pounds?" Victoria breathed. "We have that much money?"

"Apparently," Melbourne nodded, still in disbelief. "I should certainly it's enough to last until we know our way well enough for me to gain some sort of employment. I really can not believe I just said such a thing as that, actually."

He picked up one of the two iPhones sitting on the low table, and he instinctively touched his thumb to the circle to activate it. He pressed the icon with the compass and, unsurprisingly, saw that someone had preprogrammed the device to show him the biography of Queen Victoria.

" _Queen Victoria was sovereign of the United Kingdom from 1837 until her mysterious disappearance in 1839. She vanished on the same day as William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne, who was her prime minister at the time and with whom she was known to be quite close. For weeks, a great search was conducted, but no trace of either Victoria or Melbourne could be found. Upon the official declaration of Victoria's death in absentia, her uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, was suspected of murder, but he died of a heart attack before he could be brought to trial. Victoria's cousin, Prince George, the 2nd Duke of Cambridge, ascended to the throne, upon which he reigned until 1904."_

"Ma'am..." Melbourne looked up to see that Victoria was staring out the window, studying the quiet street below. She murmured,

"Nando's. Looks very busy. I wonder if it's any good."

"Ma'am," Melbourne said again, and finally Victoria turned around. He silently handed her the iPhone, and as she read, her face shifted. A little smile came over her lips, and she raised her eyes to Melbourne as she said,

"I don't suppose we'll be finding any more books, Lord M."

"Perhaps not," he said, glancing through the doorway to the cosy-looking bedroom. He walked in there and studied to neatly-made bed, the lamps beside it, and the wardrobes on the wall. He opened one of the wardrobes and found it full of men's clothing - jeans and formal trousers, suit coats in the style of this time, collared shirts and softer, more casual tops. He closed it and opened the other wardrobe, seeing all manner of women's clothing that made his cheeks go warm.

"Someone's left us enough clothing that I don't think we shall ever have to enter an H&M again," he said, walking back out into the parlour.

"And cash," Victoria said quietly, pulling open a drawer at a little desk. She pulled out stacks of notes and gestured curiously at them. "They have the same queen. Queen Elizabeth II. How is that possible, if she was descended from -"

"Perhaps some things even out in the end, Ma'am," Melbourne suggested. He watched a silver car drive by on the street below, and he said softly, "It does not seem as though so very much has changed. Perhaps your cousin George ruled in much the same way you would have done. Perhaps this Elizabeth was always destined to be queen, somehow. Perhaps she would have been born and ruled no matter her parentage, no matter our actions. Perhaps... perhaps we are meant to stay here, after all. Perhaps this is the biography you were meant to have."

"I quite like that idea, Lord M." Elizabeth studied the little booklets on the desk and picked one up, furrowing her brow. "Passports?"

She opened one and then the other, and Melbourne could see their respective, unsmiling images inside them. He took one from her and studied it, confused. It said he'd been born in the 1960s, that he'd come from the city of Melbourne. Somehow, someone had taken a photo of him for it. He took Victoria's, seeing that she'd apparently been born in 1997 and that was from London. Her face was stoic but pretty in the photo. He felt a chill go up his spine as he wondered who had made the passports.

"You need these to travel," he said numbly. "I heard someone talking about a lost passport, that they couldn't go home without it."

"Well, good. Now we can go to Jamaica," Victoria said gleefully. She walked to the window and put her hands against the glass, and Melbourne said cautiously,

"I find myself exceedingly sceptical, and even more frightened, Ma'am, of the force that has compelled us through space and time."

"I find, Lord M, that I refuse to be troubled with such ideas. Not when I have this new life to live," Victoria said. She turned her head and dragged her fingers over her ringlets. "I am going to get my hair cut. I saw a woman with pink streaks in her hair. Perhaps I shall do that."

"Ma'am," Melbourne said, shaking his head a little. He glanced back at the credit card, at the bank statement, and he shut his eyes as he realised just how badly some universal force wanted them to be here. She was his queen, and yet, it would seem, she was not. Fate had been toyed with here, he could see plainly. They had opened some sort of little rift in coming back. And yet, it seemed, the books had never given them much choice. He opened his eyes again and saw a lovely young woman, eager and enthusiastic as she bounced a little and said,

"I'm going to see every show on the West End. I shall learn to drive a car. I will dance with you, Lord M, messily and in a very undignified fashion."

She grinned at him, and he could not help but smile back a little. He stared at her deep purple gown, at her properly-arranged hair, and then he could hear her voice in her drawing room at Buckingham Palace.

 _I could have married you there._

"Nando's, you said?" Melbourne joined her at the window and looked down at the restaurant below. "It's very nearby. We ought to see if we like it."

 **Author's Note: Whiplash! Well, I don't think Victoria could have ever stayed in the 1830s happily after tasting modernity. But now that they're back in modern times (and with a bit of rewritten history), it does seem that everything's just a little too conveniently arranged for them. Nothing can be quite that convenient. Right? Riiiiiight? Last update until tomorrow - promise!**


	11. Chapter 11

"This place is even more bizarre than the other dance club!" Victoria shouted. She yanked at her tiny black skirt and could tell that Melbourne couldn't hear her. This place was truly wild, and as she glanced to her right, she saw a woman sniffing up a line of white powder from a table. Melbourne seemed to be laughing then, and he put his mouth next to Victoria's ear as he asked,

"Would you like to leave, Ma'am?"

"No!" She squeezed his hands and asked him, "Will you go fetch us drinks?"

He just nodded, disappearing into the crowd in front of the bar. Victoria looked up to where a man was standing on a little stage, seeming to control the music with his hands. The lights were angry red in the black space just now, and everyone on the dance floor was bouncing and swaying. They'd had to pay forty pounds just to come in here, which seemed an absurd sum given how very crowded it was. Though, Victoria could tell, that seemed to be part of the point.

A man came up to her and smirked, and Victoria shook her head firmly. He gave her a pleading little look, beckoning toward the dance floor, but Victoria shook her head again. Finally she saw Melbourne reappear with drinks, and as he handed her a tumbler of something pink, the younger man disappeared.

"What is this?" Victoria shouted, and Melbourne admitted,

"I'm not really sure."

He sipped at his own bottle of beer, and Victoria took a drink from the tumbler he'd handed it. It was dangerously good, awfully sweet, and she felt like she could drink ten of them. As it was, she sucked the fruity drink down much too quickly, and then she had another before Melbourne finally took her wrists in his and insisted,

"I think that's enough, don't you?"

"Then dance with me!" She grinned as he backed toward the dance floor with a smirk. She'd put her hair up into a high bun tonight, but pieces were starting to fall into her eyes. Melbourne carefully tucked them away behind her ears, and he boldly swept his arms around Victoria's form. She leaned against his chest and started to move, to gyrate the way the others were doing, and she could feel his heartbeat even over the thud of the music.

How could they have ever stayed at home, she wondered, when this world was theirs for the taking? How was she ever meant to accept the drudgery and formality of court life when she could have this? She would miss Dash, she realised. She would miss... nothing else, really. She raised her eyes to Melbourne and thought that all she'd ever really had had been him, ever since the day they'd told her she was to be queen.

"I love you," she shouted at him, echoing the way he'd first said it to her on a loud dance floor like this. He smiled a little and nodded, bending to touch his lips to her forehead. His hands tightened on her, and as the dance went on, it all began to feel awfully sensual. He was groping her a little, running his hands over her sleeveless silky top and clutching his fingers at her back and ribcage. She found herself running her hands up and down his arms, and then she caught his face in her fingers and brought him down for a kiss.

"Cradle robber," said a passing female voice, and then another added, "What a creep."

Victoria quickly broke away from Melbourne to see a few young ladies laughing as they walked off. She froze, wondering what they'd meant by that. Cradle robber? Had they meant that he was too old for her? She frowned deeply and looked up at Melbourne, who dragged his tongue over his bottom lip and shrugged.

"Places like this are for the young, I think," he said into her ear. "Let's go back to the flat, Ma'am."

"You are not old," Victoria protested as they walked up the sidewalk of Gloucester Street. Melbourne squeezed her hand a little and reminded her,

"In our own time, Ma'am, they said the same thing. That it was awkward and inappropriate for a man my age to be as close to you as I was."

"Well, I don't care what they say," Victoria said firmly. "Here I am your wife, and -"

"My wife," Melbourne repeated, stopping on the sidewalk. He shook his head a little and seemed a bit embarrassed as he pointed out, "Victoria Kent. Your passport said Victoria Kent."

"Oh." Victoria felt her cheeks flush hot. "I was only thinking... because, you know, the hotel reservation had been made for Victoria Lamb, so..."

"Yes, well... things are a little different here, I suppose. There does not appear to be any presupposition of us being married," Melbourne said. Victoria sighed and nodded, forcing a little smile.

"Victoria Kent," she repeated. "Understood."

* * *

"The shower is nice. Small, but nice." Victoria came walking out of the bathroom with only a towel wrapped around her, and Melbourne smiled a bit as he watched her braid her hair. She shook her head and protested, "No one here has hair as long as I do. I want it to reach my shoulders. That seems very fashionable."

"Your shoulders?" Melbourne repeated. Then he realised he'd seen women with all sorts of hairstyles. There seemed to be far less uniformity of fashion in this time than in the time from which they'd come, in which everything had been regimented and prescribed. He nodded and told her, "I think you ought to get it cut to whatever length suits you, Ma'am. You'll be lovely no matter what."

"You should grow a beard!" Victoria exclaimed, and Melbourne choked out a little laugh.

"Let us not allow our fantasies to run wild, Ma'am. First of all, if I grew a beard, it would be entirely grey, and secondly, I think it would look terrible."

"Suit yourself," Victoria grinned, "but I think you look profoundly handsome with that bit of stubble you have there."

He ran his hand over his jaw, feeling that he was badly in need of a shave. He'd never really let his scruff grow out before, and he wasn't about to start now. He knew well enough that what did grow in had long since faded to make him look even older. He sighed heavily and peeled back the blankets of their bed, and he suggested,

"Perhaps you could come here, Ma'am, before putting on a nightgown."

It was brazen of him, he knew, but Victoria did not seem at all to mind. She finished winding the hair elastic around the bottom of her braid, and as she stalked toward the bed, she flicked at the towel around her and let it fall. Melbourne had to stifle a little sound at that, at the sight of her.

"Have you got a... oh." Victoria smiled when she saw him pull out a wrapped condom from the pocket of his pyjama trousers. She'd still need them for a few weeks. He'd realised that whilst she'd been in the shower. He set it down on the bed and crawled up to join her, and he sighed as he lay on his back.

"Whoever bought this mattress chose quite a comfortable one," he noted. Victoria laughed a little and tugged down on his flannel trousers. Melbourne felt himself start to go hard at the way her fingers caressed his thighs and hips, the way she kept pulling until his trousers were gone. He tugged off his shirt and tossed it aside, and then he gasped. There was something wet and warm on his half-hard manhood, and as he looked down, he saw Victoria with her lips pressed there.

She stared up at him, uncertain but eager, and he just nodded, squirming a little where he lay. Victoria lapped at him, seeming curious as she coupled her hand with her mouth. She dipped down over his tip, and he hissed through his teeth,

"Where the devil did you learn about that, Ma'am?"

"Emma Portman," Victoria huffed, and Melbourne felt his eyes go wide.

"What?"

"We were discussing my potential marriage a few weeks ago," Victoria said, raising up a little, "and I worried aloud to her that I might despise marital relations. She said some men get nervous, especially the first time, and that you might help them enjoy it more if you're willing to be bold. I asked her what she meant, and she said nothing, but she put her fingers to her lips, and now I understand."

"Oh, well... thank you, Emma." He drove his head back then, for Victoria had slid her mouth down over him once more. She suckled a little and he seized her head in his hands, muttering frantically, "There won't be time for anything else."

He grasped at the sheets until his fingers curled around the condom wrapper, and Victoria watched in awe as he opened it and rolled it down over his cock. He stared at her then, at her beautiful, wide blue eyes, and he whispered,

"Will you... climb onto me?"

"Yes." She carefully straddled him, seeming a little unsure then. He guided her hips up and she sank down, and he was so breathless he couldn't speak. All he could do was groan, and as she started to rock on him, he reached up for her thighs and moaned,

"Victoria..."

"Yes, Lord M." She did not seem to mind him using her given name. Perhaps she wouldn't mind that anymore, he thought distantly. Perhaps that was who she was to him now.

"Victoria," he whispered again. She quickened her hips, moving faster up and down. He watched her breasts sway, watched, her mouth fall open, and he reached to fiddle with the front of her womanhood as she moved. She seemed to like that rather a lot, rolling her hips against his hand and driving him even more deeply inside of her. She kept going until Melbourne was certain he was going to lose himself, but somehow she got there first. She cried out, and he could feel her walls clamping around him as her hands grappled for purchase. He threaded his fingers through hers and kissed her back when she collapsed down against him, and then he came harder than he could ever remember doing. It felt good, so very good, and so he deeply regretted having to whisper to her,

"You must climb off now, Ma'am."

Ma'am. He would never be able to keep that word from her, even if he were to call her Victoria. And he would not want to be William to her. He was her Lord M. It could be a silly nickname. That was what they would tell the people they would meet. It was a nickname. They were playful people.

He cleaned himself off in the bathroom, feeling awfully dizzy as he realised that earlier today they'd been standing in her drawing room at Buckingham Palace. Before he'd gone to her there, he'd had a meeting about the Chartists in Wales. How had that debacle fared, he wondered? He considered looking it up on his iPhone, but then he thought to himself that he didn't really want to know. That time was gone.

* * *

"Whilst you're in there, I'm... I'm going to run an errand of my own," Melbourne said. Victoria frowned at him but didn't question him, and he said, "I shall be back soon."

"All right," Victoria nodded. She walked into the hair salon, marveling at the way the women were all chatting with one another. This wasn't so very different from her times with Mrs Jenkins and Miss Skerrett, except that there were plastic capes and machines that seemed to blow air at hair to quickly dry it.

"Hello. Can I help you?" The young woman at the front desk was very tall, and Victoria felt shorter than ever. She smiled shyly and said,

"I'd like rather a major haircut," she said. "Something up to my shoulders, perhaps."

"Oh, that'll look marvelous on you. I'm Susie. I can take you now. Can I just get your name and mobile number into our system?"

"My name is Victoria... Kent. Victoria Kent." She felt her cheeks go warm. She'd almost said 'Lamb.' She waited until Susie finished inputting the information into her machine, and then she admitted, "I've just got my new iPhone and I haven't got the number memorised."

"No problem. We can get that some other time. Come with me, love." Susie guided Victoria to a black leather chair on a swivel, and she instantly put a cape round her neck. She took Victoria's bun out and seemed amazed at the length of Victoria's hair.

"When's the last time you had it cut?" Susie asked, and Victoria gulped.

"It's been... a very long time."

"Would you be open to some highlights?" Susie dragged her fingers through Victoria's hair, and Victoria shrugged.

"I'm not really sure what those are."

Susie frowned. "Highlights. You know, like carefully placed streaks of slightly lighter hair. Gives it good dimension."

"Oh. Erm... perhaps just the cut today," Victoria said, feeling a little afraid all of a sudden. She grew even more afraid as the woman used a bottle to spray her hair until it was sopping wet, then to comb through, and then to cut. The sound of the scissors slicing through the wet hair was unnerving, and Victoria had to fight not to squirm. She'd always squirmed for poor Miss Skerrett.

Victoria stared into the mirror, remembering days in her dressing room as Miss Skerrett carefully braided and wove her hair. Now Susie was chopping it all off, and Victoria had a sudden spike of regret go through her. She glanced down at the wad of hair in Susie's hand. It was being donated, apparently. They made wigs for sick people with donated hair. Susie bagged it up, and Victoria tried to reassure herself that her hair would do someone good. In her own time, hair had not come from donations when it was needed.

The cut started to neaten, to refine, and eventually Victoria had waves framing her face and down to her shoulders. Susie put some sort of pomade in it, which Victoria had seen on a shelf on her way in and resolved to buy before leaving. Then Susie used the machine that blasted air so hot it seemed like hellfire, and Victoria tried to stay calm. Finally she was done, and she smiled a little at herself in the mirror as she felt for the first time like she fit in here.

"Thank you," she said, her voice breaking a little, and Susie grinned.

"Lots of people get emotional with the big chop. I think it looks great."

Victoria paid for the cut and for the bottle of 'product,' as Susie called it, and then she walked back out onto the sidewalk. Melbourne was standing there, staring at his iPhone, and when he noticed her, he shoved it into his pocket and gaped.

"Well?" Victoria hesitated before him. "What do you think, Lord M?"

"I think you look... heavenly," he said, dragging his fingers through her sleek waves and chewing a little at his lip. "I could kiss you right here."

"Do it," she whispered playfully, but he shook his head. Victoria asked him, "Did you find what you were looking for, Lord M?"

"Oh... not yet. I was just researching that on the phone, actually. I'll try a few different places tomorrow."

He seemed nervous all of a sudden, and Victoria could not help but chuckle.

"Whatever are you trying to buy?"

He sighed and ran his fingers through her hair again. "Allow me just this one secret, Ma'am. I promise it won't last forever."

"All right." She frowned deeply, and then she teased him, "Perhaps now you can research how to travel to Jamaica."

He scoffed and reached for her hand. "Someday, Ma'am, I shall take you to Jamaica. For now, I think I shall take you to lunch at Nando's. It is rather addictive."

 **Author's Note: Yeah, yeah. I lied. Couldn't help writing one more chapter. It's distracting me from how miserably sick I am. LOL. Thanks as always for reading. If you get a quick moment to drop a comment, I'd really appreciate it.**


	12. Chapter 12

"Is it common to simply buy colourless diamonds?" Melbourne picked up the ring from the counter of Tiffany and Co. on Sloane Street. He'd been informed by his iPhone that this was the preeminent place to shop for engagement rings, which were worn by even working and middle class women in this time. The salesman - far more formally dressed than nearly anybody else Melbourne had seen - tipped his head and said,

"Most women just want a rock. A very big, sparkly rock. That's why our classic solitaire design has been so enduringly popular."

"She is not easily impressed," Melbourne pointed out. "She is quite accustomed to very fine jewelry. I fear I may need to be a bit more bold in my selection."

The salesman smirked a little but nodded. "Got yourself a real princess, eh?"

"More like a queen," Melbourne murmured, setting the square-cut diamond ring down. The salesman rummaged about in the glass cases for a while, finally pulling out a display upon which a very large clear stone was surrounded by little pink ones. More diamonds ran all round the band, too. It certainly sparkled.

"This is the Soleste round ring," the salesman said. "A two carat round diamond surrounded by pink diamonds for a pop of colour. All set it platinum, of course. It's far from our most expensive item, but, if I'm honest, it's long been one of my very favourites."

Melbourne smiled a little down at the ring. It was round and feminine and delicate enough for Victoria's hand.

"She is very small," he said. "Very small. Will you be able to make it any smaller?"

"Oh, of course sir. If you've any notion of her size, we can start from there. Do you think you like this one?"

"I think that she will like it," Melbourne nodded, "and that's what matters."

* * *

Victoria stared at the pages before her, entirely awestruck by the words that had been written. This novel, which she'd found upon a bookshelf in the parlour, was called _Lolita,_ and it seemed at once the work of a deranged pervert and a brilliant visionary. Even through the haze of modern references that Victoria did not understand, she was moved profoundly. She had never read anything like this in all her life. She would have ventured to guess that nothing like this had even existed in her life.

She'd figured out how to make herself tea. There was a sort of pot in the kitchen that had a little switch on it. Victoria had turned it on, expecting it to fill, but instead it had grown very hot. So she'd filled it up, over the metal coils in the bottom, and she'd flipped the switch again. Then the water had gone all the way to boiling, and she'd searched in the cupboards for jars of tea leaves. Instead she'd found a small box filled with bagged tea, conveniently partitioned for one serving. She'd put it into a rather stout and heavy cup she'd found in another cupboard, and she'd poured the hot water over it.

This was familiar, she thought, sipping carefully at the cup where she sat on the cushy divan. She set down her copy of _Lolita_ and glanced out the window at where it had begun to rain. Melbourne had gone shopping today, and took every ounce of self-control for Victoria not to scream with the unknown involved there. What was he buying? What was he so interested in hunting down and purchasing that she could not be a part? She trusted him, and, yet, it was unnerving to be so alone here, to be alone in their flat.

Their flat.

She set down her tea and shut her eyes, thinking of the last time she and Melbourne had ridden out together. Did they have horses here, she wondered? He'd always looked so very handsome in his riding clothes. She'd always felt a little pretty beside him in her riding costume, too. He'd looked at her a certain way when they'd ridden out, with a little glimmer in his eye that she now knew had meant he'd wanted her. Or, at least, he'd been fond of her.

He loved her.

He'd told her again just this morning before he'd left. He'd kissed her on the forehead and the cheeks and then the mouth, and he'd said it almost desperately. But then he'd gone, leaving Victoria to explore their tiny library. She was curious, all of a sudden, about what else had changed. She picked up her iPhone from the low table before her and opened up the icon with the compass. Melbourne had shown her how to put in letters at the top, which would trigger a sort of search of a vast cache of information. She stared at the screen after she'd put in her search, and then finally she pressed "Enter."

She spent the next ten minutes reading about how her cousin George had produced nine children with his Russian duchess of a wife. They'd named one after her, it seemed. Victoria. Some had been married off to German states, and their grandchildren had proliferated throughout Europe. But then Victoria grew troubled, because she began to read about terrible wars, wars that killed millions and millions of people. By the time the second war came around, there were barely any monarchies left in Europe, and new, terrifying individuals far worse than Caesar had hurtled themselves to power. Victoria scowled as she read about revolts from terrorised British colonial populations, independence movements against England all over the globe. She read about modern warfare, the way there had been bombs that had flattened cities and made survivors sick for decades.

She ought not to have pressed on all the underlined phrases, she thought suddenly. She'd gone down a path of exploration that was terrifying, and she knew more now than she'd ever wanted to know. Would all of this have happened if she'd married Albert and stayed queen for sixty-three years like these people had been taught? She shut her eyes and told herself that it was not worth wondering about that. That time was gone. That history was changed. Her life was here now; she'd made her choice.

* * *

"Oh, Lord M. Thank goodness you're back. I discovered far too much on my iPhone, and now I'm very uneasy, and... you are soaked through."

"Yes." Melbourne threw his hands up and smiled. "The rain came rather suddenly. All the cabs were occupied. There are buses... something called an Underground, which I believe is like a train. Perhaps we might learn to use those systems. It would have saved me the long, wet walk, certainly."

He sat opposite Victoria, and she nearly scolded him for getting the chair all wet. Then she realised he hadn't waited for her to give him permission to sit. He was getting a little easier with her, a little more natural. There was no real reason for ceremony here, she thought. She was not a queen anymore.

"It that book good, Ma'am?" His use of the honorific jarred her, and she just nodded.

" _Lolita_. Seems very scandalous, even for these times. But I'm enjoying it."

"Good. I am glad to hear it." He seemed quite nervous then, his hands knitting back and forth over his knees. He sighed and asked lightly, "What did you learn on your iPhone that was so unnerving, Ma'am?"

"I learnt that my cousin George seems to have had the children I was meant to. The names looked the same and everything. History appears to have mostly carried on without me. But that history is horrifying, Lord M. Trenches that stretched hundreds of miles whilst men spent years dying in them for nothing. A very successful effort to eradicate all the Jews from Europe. Explosives - atomic bombs, they call them - that killed hundreds of thousands in a single day. It is... there is more to this world than I had thought. There is more than just dance clubs and tiny clothes and hair cuts."

Melbourne's faced warmed, and he said carefully, "The perils of modernity, then. What a difficult burden it is to learn the world is crueler than you'd thought. They do seem so comparatively peaceful, so harmonious. At least in contrast to the world we left behind. It is disheartening to know they still struggle so mightily with being human."

"Perhaps humans will always struggle mightily with being human," Victoria mused, and Melbourne scratched at his jaw as he said,

"I do not suspect there is anything you could have single-handedly done as queen to prevent atomic bombs from killing people, Ma'am."

"Perhaps not," she whispered. She breathed in deeply and stared out the window at the rain, and she asked, "Will you say something cheerful now? I dislike this dreary feeling."

"I have something... something which I hope might bring you some measure of happiness," Melbourne said carefully. Victoria turned her eyes to him curiously, and then he was fumbling a little in the pocket of his light jacket. He pulled out a little box, and Victoria tipped her head.

"What's that?"

He stared at the box and said, "If I had been a prince and worthy of you, Ma'am, you would have had to ask me... you being the queen."

Her stomach went cold and flopped.

"But," Melbourne continued, raising his green eyes, "Seeing as how we are somewhere else entirely, and you are Victoria Kent here, I wonder if you might allow me to do the asking."

"Lord M," she whispered, beginning to shake. Melbourne stood and walked around to the place where she was sitting. He smiled a little as he descended to one knee, and he took her left hand in his. It was the opposite hand from the one he'd always kissed, so he smirked a bit and admitted, "Feels strange to kneel and hold this one."

He cracked open the box he was holding, and inside was a sparkling diamond ring with a circle of pink stones. Victoria felt her mouth fall open a little. She understood. This was how it was done here, with a man on his knee in a one of last vestiges of chivalric deference. Lord Melbourne, as prime minister, had genuflected more times than he could count to Queen Victoria. But this was different. She tried to stand, to heave herself from where she was sitting, but she could not. All she could do was let him slide the ring onto her finger and breathe a sigh of relief when it fit. Then he raised his pleading eyes to her, and he used the words she'd turned on him in her drawing room at Buckingham Palace.

"You could marry me here."

"Yes," she whispered, feeling tears boil up in her eyes. "Yes, Lord M. I could marry you here."

"Will you?" He came up to sit beside her, and she nodded as she took his face in her hands.

"Yes, Lord M," she said again. "I will marry you here."

 **Author's Note: Squeeee. I had way too much fun writing that. Now, even if they do a civil ceremony, they'll need two witnesses. That could get a little complicated. And then there's the matter of a wedding gown, and getting a new passport, and... oh, dear. May have just opened a Pandora's Box. But at least they're engaged, right? And at least they're about to celebrate that very intimately, right? Riiiiight? :)**


	13. Chapter 13

"Lord M?"

"Hmm..." He turned a little, feeling tired from so vigorously celebrating his engagement to Victoria. She'd properly worn him out, not once but twice, and now all he could do was sleep. But when he cracked his eyes open, she blinked quickly at him and flicked her eyes down to her ring.

"I want you," she whispered, and he scoffed.

"Again, Ma'am? I am not a young man, though I'm not sure even a young man could do much more than I have at this point."

"Still." Victoria reached for his fingers and slid them up the inside of her bare thigh. His fingertips hit the slick folds of what lay between her legs, and as he glanced at the clock on the wall, he realised it had been a good three hours since anything had passed between them. She was certainly making him stretch for it, at his age, but he would try.

"Perhaps... perhaps I could focus my attentions on you, Ma'am," he suggested. He leaned toward her and pressed his lips to her neck to make his point, and he dipped two fingers into her sodden entrance. She was so wet, wet enough to make him hiss against her neck, and as he started to play with her there, he realised he desperately wanted to taste her.

"Victoria," he murmured, pushing the blankets down and slithering between her legs.

"What are you doing, Lord M?" She sounded genuinely surprised by the way he was pushing her back, by the way he was parting her legs and staring down at her, and he smirked at her in the darkness.

"If you do not like it," he said, "then tell me and I shall stop."

He suspected she would like it.

He held gently to her thighs as he dipped his face and started to drink her in, sliding his tongue all around the metallic tang of her and letting his voice vibrate there. Victoria gasped and arched her back, and her little hands flew to Melbourne's shoulders. He felt the cold touch of her engagement ring on his skin, and for some reason that drove him to want her even more. He massaged her every way he knew how. He made long strokes with hard pressure, over and over again, and then he suckled a little at her nub. He had not done anything like this to a woman in probably thirty years - or perhaps it had been two hundred - but he'd never enjoyed it. Not like this.

He found himself growling onto her, distantly hearing her voice crackling in the nighttime space as she writhed with pleasure. He found a way of licking and sucking that made her cry out loudly, and he just kept on doing that, thinking that stopping was the worst thing possible just now. His mouth and chin were covered in her, but he didn't care. In fact, he quite liked it. He liked the taste of her, the smooth feel of her, and he squeezed her thighs hard as he felt her contract around his lips and tongue.

He stayed against her for a moment, feeling himself so achingly hard between his legs that he was shocked. He'd had her twice already tonight - once hovering above her and going slowly for a long time, and the next time far more powerfully from behind. And yet, here he was, finding his hypersensitive cock grazing against the sheets and nearly spilling himself there. He sat up slowly, swiping at his chin and lips with the inside of his wrist, and he saw awe written on Victoria's face.

"I had no idea you could do that," she whispered, and he smirked. He couldn't quite calm himself, couldn't quite get his heart or breath to slow, and on instinct he reached for Victoria's hand. He brought it to his cock and wrapped her fingers around his shaft, and he whispered,

"Please. It will only take a moment."

Now it was her giving him a cheeky, red-faced smile, and she muttered,

"Not a young man, indeed."

"Well, I'm not," he huffed, moving to the side to keep himself far away from her entrance without a condom. "Being with you makes me feel a good deal younger, Ma'am. It always has."

She kept stroking him, and she surprised him by reaching her other hand between her legs and covering her fingers with her own natural lubrication. She did it a few times, coating Melbourne's cock in it until her hand moved slickly and easily. That was too much; he'd been drawn to frenzy just by using his mouth on her. He groaned and tipped his head back as she brought her hand up over his tip, and he watched his seed leap all over her flat belly. Victoria smiled down at it, even playing with it a little, dragging her fingers through it, and he warned her,

"You will need... to take a shower, Ma'am. Not safe to... mmph. You know, they said a few weeks with that arm implant."

"Right." Victoria nodded firmly and carefully rose. She had no desire for children, he knew, at least not any time soon. Women here were still commonly studying at universities at her age. Hardly any would marry at twenty in this time, and it was deeply frowned upon to procreate at such a perceived young age. That suited Victoria, he knew. If she were twenty-five or twenty-six before she were burdened with motherhood - or not burdened with it at all, as also seemed common here - she would be happy. The last thing he would do in this place would be to give her a weight she hadn't even wanted in their own existence.

He waited his turn for the shower, and after he heard it stop running, he went into the bathroom to find her standing in a towel. He dragged his fingers through his greying hair and told her,

"It is two in the morning, you know, Ma'am."

"Yes," she nodded. "I drifted off, and then I woke up wanting you. I'm sorry."

"Don't ever apologise for that," he smiled. He took her face in his hands and kissed her very carefully, and he whispered, "I never realised how hard I was trampling on it in my mind."

"Trampling on what?" She looked worried, and he shrugged.

"How fiercely I loved you. I was not allowed to love you."

"Well, Lord M," she said, with all the haughtiness of the queen she'd been, "You are allowed here."

* * *

"We are so very near Kensington Palace here," Victoria noted as Melbourne pulled her chair out for her in the pub, "and yet we are a world away, I think."

"Indeed. The new Duke of Cambridge lives there now, I think. He is young. Well-liked. Married a commoner in a morganatic marriage that enthralled the entire nation." Melbourne smiled a little and shrugged. "Things change."

Victoria smiled a little. "Hm. If we were to marry, you and I, in our own time -"

"That would never have happened, Ma'am," he interrupted her, and Victoria smiled more broadly. "Right. Of course not. But if it had, if I'd married, it likely would have been in somewhere like... St James', in the Chapel Royal. But, of course, here I think we shall have very few guests."

Melbourne picked up a chip and studied it for a moment, then bit into it and asked carefully,

"Does that disturb you, Ma'am? Who will be absent... your mother, the rest of the royal family... does it upset you to think of something so very small and insignificant instead of something grand?"

"Insignificant?" Victoria scoffed and fiddled with her pretty ring on her finger. "Lord M, to me it will be the most significant wedding that has ever come to pass."

He curled up his lips a little and then got more serious as he said, "If we marry through the path of least resistance here, which is to say, a civil wedding as opposed to a religious one... we need witnesses. Two witnesses."

"But we do not known anyone," Victoria pointed out, and Melbourne laughed a little as he suggested,

"Perhaps it is time to change that, Ma'am. If we mean to stay, we can not be alone forever, drifting about. You had friends in our time. Your ladies. Your mother and Sir John, they tried to keep you from having friends, but you liked having them, didn't you?"

"Yes," Victoria admitted. But then she shrugged and asked helplessly, "Where will we find friends? We are only just learning how to live here. Do you not think they will suspect something strange about us?"

"I think the biggest hurdle will be convincing people that I am not your father," Melbourne said, picking up another chip and slowly eating it. Once he'd finished, he sighed, "Still, I think there are ways. There was a... a wine club. We passed it this morning. They had a sign up for a 'couples wine social night' this Wednesday. We could go... better to try than not, I think."

Victoria found herself laughing rather wildly then, and when poor Lord M looked very confused, she shrugged and said,

"We are going to circle around this city stalking out strangers as friends so that they might be witnesses at our wedding, because we do not know anyone here, because we come from a time more than a century and a half in the past, where, by the way, I was the queen of England and you the prime minister. We shall a very strong backstory, Lord M, to mask the fact that we are complete and utter charlatans."

He reached for her hand, looking a little amused, and he said, "Victoria Kent. Born in 1997, raised in Kensington. Awfully posh, as they say now. Wealthy little thing with a stingingly aristocratic background. Highly private education. Fell madly in love with an older man from Derbyshire. Family disapproves."

She dragged her teeth over her lip and nodded.

"That doesn't sound so strange. And you? A widowed man from a little town, starting over in the big city with his young love? And what is your profession, Mr Lamb?"

"Banking," he said simply. "It seems as though I'm particularly adept with money. Analysing the effects of political happenings on the market and the like. It's all very dry, very boring, not anything worth discussing at a wine club."

"I see. And we like West End shows, don't we?" Victoria grinned, letting this fantasy run away from her. "We've seen Phantom and we've purchased tickets for The Lion King, and we'd love more recommendations."

"We like a good Bordeaux, or something like a Spanish red, but we're open to exploring sweeter white wines. German dessert options are of particular interest." Melbourne narrowed his eyes and reached for Victoria's left hand, dragging his thumb over the diamond he put there. "I will marry you, Victoria. With witnesses."

 **Author's Note: Raise your hand if you're excited to see Lord M and Victoria haplessly attempt to forge friendships at a wine bar! Haha. It'll be their first time really, really interacting with people from this time and trying to carve new lives for themselves. I'm looking forward to writing that, but it's going to be a long enough interlude that I'll make it its own chapter. In the meantime, please do leave a comment if you get just a few seconds. I appreciate the feedback more than I can say, especially since I barely give time for it between updates. :}**


	14. Chapter 14

Melbourne pulled out Victoria's chair at the large round table where they'd found two empty seats. The others at the table were chatting quietly, couples that seemed closer to Melbourne's age than to Victoria's. He was so nervous as he sat that he missed the way the man beside him stuck out his hand and said,

"Welcome to the table that's going to dominate trivia."

"Trivia?" Victoria's eyebrows flew up. The tall, thin redheaded woman beside the other man laughed and said, "Oh, did you not know? They introduce a variety of wine in between each trivia question. The table who's won at the end of the night gets the entire thing comped. First-timers, eh?"

"Yes." Melbourne smiled a little and finally shook the man's hand, which he'd almost put down. "I'm William Lamb. This is my intended, Victoria."

"His intended. How romantic!" The red headed woman gave a toothy grin and said, "I'm Angela; this is my husband Oliver."

"You two live in the neighborhood?" Oliver, a plump and mostly hairless man, asked. Melbourne hesitated and finally said,

"Up on Gloucester Street."

"Nice." Oliver's eyebrows flew up, and he seemed a little confused by the way Victoria was sitting so quietly. Melbourne knew why. She was young. Very young. Melbourne tried to cover quickly by joking,

"She's finally old enough to drag her to things like this."

Angela scowled, and Melbourne realised at once that he'd said exactly the wrong thing. They seemed almost repulsed, Angela and Oliver, all of a sudden. Melbourne licked his lip and sighed, and he gave a rather wretched little smile, opening his mouth to try and fix the situation.

"He's finally old enough to convince him to try a greater variety of wine," Victoria butted in, and then Angela's face softened a little. Victoria reached for Melbourne's right hand and squeezed it a bit, and Angela gasped,

"Oh, your ring is lovely!"

"Thank you." Victoria let the other woman dash up and come over and ogle the jewelry, and Melbourne said quietly to Oliver,

"We're rather awful at sociability, I'm afraid."

"Nah. Just enjoy the wine and answer the questions, and you'll be just fine," Oliver said.

The next ten minutes were spent meeting the other couples at the table, all of whom seemed terribly dull. There was a woman who was a barrister, which fascinated Victoria to the point that she asked one question after another, and finally the woman asked,

"What do you do?"

"Me?" Victoria looked taken aback. She was the queen, Melbourne wanted to say. They should all be in awe of her, in reverence of her. Victoria just shrugged a little and admitted, "I haven't... haven't quite figured that yet."

The woman barrister laughed and nodded. "I didn't go back for law until I was almost thirty. You've got plenty of time to find your way."

"Right." Victoria turned her head then as their first small sampler of wine was poured. Melbourne listened as the server explained that it was a New Zealand Chardonnay. Victoria gave Melbourne a meaningful look, and he knew why. They'd only just begun settling New Zealand in their time. Now the place was making wine. He curled up his lips a little and slowly tasted the wine like the others, munching from a cracker as Victoria spoke to the man beside her.

"And what does your... your fiancé... do for a living?"

"He's in banking," Victoria said smoothly. Suddenly a knowing look came over the man's face, and again Melbourne knew why. Gold-digger. That was the word they used now. He'd heard it in a song on the street and he'd instantly known what they meant. A young woman in search of an older man's fortune. Melbourne leaned over and said to the man,

"Just a banker from a piddling little town in Derbyshire."

"Derbyshire! What town?" The man looked astonished, and Melbourne gulped hard.

"Erm... Melbourne."

"Oh. I know the place well. Love to visit Melbourne Hall. Beautiful gardens." The man sipped at his wine, and Melbourne's heart accelerated.

"It's been some time since I've been back," he said, more truthfully than he'd intended. "Is the Birdcage still there?"

The man laughed a bit. "Well, yeah. I should hope they wouldn't muck that up."

Before Melbourne could answer, a voice came over the wine bar, amplified by some sort of artificial means.

"Welcome to social night!"

People cheered half-heartedly from the tables, and Melbourne flicked his eyes nervously to Victoria. The woman on the speaker told them to choose a spokesperson, and Angela quickly whipped out little white cards and a pen and volunteered. She'd done this before, obviously. The woman on the speaker then said to choose a table team name, and somehow it was decided that they would be "Get Your Kicks At Table Six." That made no sense at all to Melbourne, but the others seemed amused. Finally it was time for the first question, and Melbourne found himself drinking his Chardonnay down far more quickly than he was probably meant to do.

"All right, Ladies and Gentlemen! Tonight for our first question, we're hitting close to home! Ready? This British sovereign was king during the American Revolution and was completely insane by the end of his reign. I'll read it again. This British sovereign was king during the American Revolution and was completely insane by the end of his reign."

"Oh, it's one of the Georges," Angela hissed, and the female barrister nodded.

"Yes, that's why they call it all Georgian things. But which George?"

"The third," Victoria said, and they all looked at her sceptically. She nodded firmly. "I am very, very certain."

"It was most certainly King George III," Melbourne nodded. Angela shrugged and wrote it down and went up to the woman with the speaker, and Oliver asked,

"Big history buffs, are you?"

"You could say that," Melbourne nodded. As the answers were tallied, they were brought a Spanish Rioja to drink, along with a little nibble of cheese.

"Oh, I quite like this one," Victoria smiled. She started talking again to the man beside her. The man's wife seemed utterly oblivious to the fact that her husband was flirting with the young woman, but Melbourne pinched his lips and scowled a bit past Victoria. The man backed off after awhile, leaving alone the questions about where she'd gone to school and whether she liked to travel.

"Question Two!" The woman with the speaker was too loud all of a sudden, and Melbourne touched at his ear. He was unaccustomed to such loud sounds. He sipped at his Spanish Rioja and felt Victoria's hand rub at his knee under the table. He gave her a playful little look and popped some cheese into his mouth, and Victoria's fingers tightened. Then the woman up at the front of the bar said,

"Manchester United have won more Premier League Titles than any other club. How many have they won?"

"Oh, well. We don't know this one." Melbourne smiled down at Victoria, and she shrugged helplessly as she whispered,

"I don't even know what a Premier League is."

"Thirteen, obviously," said a bored-looking man across the table.

"You sure it's not twelve?" asked another woman, and the man glared at him. They were married, Melbourne could tell, apparently unhappily.

"It's thirteen, Doris," the man barked, and Doris shrugged.

"Thirteen, then."

Angela took that answer up, too, and the Spanish Rioja was replaced by something called a Moscato.

"So... do you and Angela come for the wine or the quizzing?" Melbourne asked, and Oliver scoffed.

"We come because our youngest is off to university now and we get very bored at home," he said.

"You have children," Melbourne nodded, and Oliver smiled fondly.

"Yes. Claire's twenty; she studies at Exeter. Going for ecology... wants to save all the endangered flowers."

"What a noble endeavour," Melbourne nodded, realising that this man's daughter was the same age as Victoria. But where their daughter was just a university student, Victoria had been a queen. Melbourne tried to listen as Oliver described their eighteen-year-old son who was 'high on rugby and everything else,' but all he could think of was Victoria's coronation. He could hear the choirs, could feel the sword in his hand. He could see the heavy crown on her head, the solemnity and weight of her responsibility symbolised by it. Now she was just a young woman in a wine bar, elegantly fending off the advances of a rather bold commoner, answering questions about her insane grandfather. She'd be going home to a tiny flat with an old man who was an alien here just like she was. He gulped hard and tried to imagine how it was that she could be happy here, how it was that she'd wanted to leave her reign behind.

"And what does he study, your son?" Melbourne made himself say. Oliver shrugged.

"English literature. How very useless, right? I'm sure he'll be back home in a few years' time."

"Question Three! More history for you!"

There was a collective groan then, and Melbourne wondered if they mean modern, recent history that would be just as foreign as Premier Leagues. But then the woman said,

"An invasion of Mexico occurred by this nation during the amusingly-named Pastry War. I shall read it again. An invasion of Mexico occurred by this nation during the amusingly-named Pastry War."

"The Pastry War?" Angela threw her hands up. "I've never even heard of that."

"It was France," Victoria said, and once again everyone seemed mildly amazed. Melbourne smirked to himself. He vividly remembered the meeting he'd had with her in 1838 where he'd explained the delicate international situation. He could still see the pale blue dress she'd been wearing that day, the way she'd frowned at the idea of a war in Mexico.

"A French pastry chef claimed his shop had been looted by Mexican officials. For years, the French demanded reparations and then more exorbitant payments. When the Mexicans refused to pay, France blockaded and then captured Veracruz, and Mexico declared war."

Angela narrowed her eyes, "Darling, however do you know so much history?"

"A very competent man informed me of that particular situation," Victoria said, and Melbourne squeezed at her hand beneath the table. She was remembering the meeting, too, he knew, but she would sounding strange without realising it. He gave a self-deprecating smile and said,

"I think Victoria is living proof that a university education can be vastly overrated."

"How very true. I'll drink to that," said the man beside her, holding up his wine.

There were four more rounds, but neither Victoria nor Melbourne knew the answers to them. The table got two questions wrong in all, and so they all had to fork over money for their wine samplings.

"Always leave these social nights completely buzzed, you know?" Oliver said from beside Melbourne. Melbourne nodded and glanced over to Victoria, who was smiling just a little too broadly at the flirtatious man beside her.

"When's the next one of these?" Melbourne asked, and Oliver shrugged.

"They have them every month or so. You know, you two should come for drinks with Angela and me sometime. She misses Claire; I'm sure she'd like to spend some time with a young woman like Victoria."

Oliver seemed to realise at once that that had sounded wrong, too, but Melbourne nodded and said quietly,

"It is easy to get lonely, isn't it?"

"Very easy." Oliver held his hand out again as he stood. "It was good to meet you, William. Oh, look. The girls don't need our help; they're exchanging contact information already."

Melbourne turned to see that Victoria had handed over her iPhone to Angela, who was explaining to 'text' her if they ever wanted to 'grab a drink or three.' Victoria took her device back with a nervous smile, and she tucked it into her black leather handbag that had been mysteriously waiting in the wardrobes for her.

"When's the wedding?" Angela asked, and Melbourne shrugged a bit.

"We haven't set a date. It'll be very small."

"Well, best of luck. It was a delight to meet you." Angela took her husband's hand and walked out of the wine bar, and Melbourne did the same with Victoria after he set some cash down on the table. Outside, in the cool night air, he said carefully,

"That went well, I think."

"The man beside me... his name was Geoffrey. He wanted us to come to their house and... swap, he said."

"What?" Melbourne stopped and scowled down at her. "Swap. Swap what?"

"Each other, I think," Victoria hissed, and Melbourne's eyebrows flew up. He shook his head wildly and declared, "I do not suppose I will ever fully understand these people."

"Angela and Oliver seemed nice enough," Victoria said. "She rather reminded me of Emma Portman. Emma was always so caring to me, and..."

She blinked quickly, and Melbourne told her quietly,

"It is good and right that you should miss certain people and things."

"Everything we told them was a lie," Victoria pointed out. "Almost every word from our mouths was a complete lie."

"With every passing day, I think, it will feel more like truth," Melbourne said, waiting for the walk symbol at a crosswalk. He'd learnt the hard way that the black cabs, in particular, were not wont to stop for people who crossed at the wrong moment. He shrugged down to Victoria and said,

"We can always try again elsewhere for friends, Ma'am."

He hadn't called her that all night, he realised. He could scarcely do so in front of the others. That thought made him chew his lip hard, and his breath shook a little as they began to cross the street.

Later that night, Victoria sat up in bed on her iPhone, and she told Melbourne,

"I've done a search for 'London Social Events.' Did you know there's a costume ball on Friday? Everyone comes in costumes and dances and... you know, socialises."

"And you'd like to go in our clothes from home," Melbourne nodded. He licked his bottom lip and rose from the bed, going over to the wardrobe and saying softly, "I'm not quite sure why I didn't tell you this was here. In fact, I'm not quite why it's here. It seems very out of place among the jeans and new shirts."

"What are you talking about, Lord M?" Victoria frowned from the bed as he opened the wardrobe and pulled out a black jacket from inside. It wasn't just any black jacket. It was a Windsor Uniform jacket, and more specifically, the one he'd worn at Windsor, embroidered with his own initials on the inside. It even had the little spot of wear on the right sleeve that it had had in its own time. He held it up to Victoria, and her mouth fell open.

"Oh," she said quietly, and for a while she said nothing after that. Then she murmured, "Well, there could be no... no more elegant costume than that."

"It won't be like home, Ma'am," he said. "They'll all look like jesters, and they'll dance terribly, and we'll still feel like birds without wings."

"I don't care," Victoria whispered from the bed. Her eyes locked onto the gold braiding of his coat, and then flicked down to the diamond ring on her finger, and Melbourne realised she was utterly lost. He could not marry her at home. But she would become homesick just the same. How could she not? She stared at her ring for a very long moment and then back up to the Uniform, and he told her,

"I shall wear it with pride, Your Majesty."

 **Author's Note: What's a girl to do when she misses parts of her life as queen and yet adores parts of her new life? Hopefully seeing her Lord M in his Windsor Uniform and waltzing with him with help a little. ;) But don't get too comfortable - whatever force has sent them here has a little too much access to their lives, don't you think? Thanks for reading and please do leave a comment if you get a moment.**


	15. Chapter 15

"Church."

"I beg your pardon?" Victoria looked up from her tea and the copy of _Lolita_ that she was re-reading, and Melbourne sat slowly opposite her.

"Church. The... organist could be a witness. The little old man who lights the candles. They do not require the twenty-eight day posting period that a civil marriage does. We would just need our passports, and then the vicar would file the paperwork."

Victoria set down her tea and shrugged. "Well. That would seem to the be the answer, then."

Melbourne huffed out a little breath and said desperately, "Poor Oliver and Angela. They never knew we were targeting them for witnesses. You will need a gown. I need... something formal."

"You have your Windsor Uniform," Victoria said, as though it were obvious, and Melbourne scoffed.

"I do not think they marry in such clothing, Ma'am."

"But you are marrying me, and I would like you to marry me in your Windsor Uniform, please." She folded her hands, as though the matter was quite settled, and he tipped his head.

"As you command, Your Majesty. I took the liberty of calling St Nicholas' Church down the road. They would be willing to perform a private ceremony."

"When?" Victoria breathed, and Melbourne said carefully,

"Tomorrow," he said, "or next Friday or any other Friday. Saturdays are generally for larger, public ceremonies."

"Tomorrow," Victoria breathed. She grinned widely and flew up from the divan. "I must go get a gown at once. You can buy them right out of the shops."

"Victoria." Melbourne rose slowly and took his hands in hers, staring down at her as if she were very delicate. "I do not to mean to rush you."

Victoria shut her eyes and shook her head. "Lord M, if I could marry you ten minutes from now, I would do it. Tomorrow will do splendidly."

"Best go find a gown, then," he said helplessly, and Victoria held out her hand.

"I shall require the credit card, I think."

* * *

"What do you think, Miss Kent?"

Victoria stared at her reflection in the mirror and nodded. This was the seventh gown she'd tried on. It was off-the-shoulder, satin covered in lace, and for some reason in made her think vaguely of home. The full, long skirt, the gloves she'd put on with it. It felt mostly right, far more right than the strapless monstrosities she'd already tried on. There was only one problem.

"It's too long," she said. "Or, rather, I am too short for it."

"Well, when's the wedding date?" The eager blonde saleswoman smiled in her little cocktail dress, and Victoria said hesitantly,

"Tomorrow."

"You're eloping! Marvelous. Well... I'm not sure our seamstress could get it done so quickly..."

"I will pay whatever I must to have this gown fit me tomorrow." Victoria stared at her reflection again, and the saleswoman said carefully,

"Perhaps for a rush charge. I can go to the back and ask the seamstress if she could come measure you now and do it quickly."

"Thank you." They had machines for sewing, Victoria knew. If Mrs Jenkins and Miss Skerrett had been able to quickly mend her stockings and hems, then surely a seamstress here could shorten a gown. As the saleswoman meandered to the back of the shop, Victoria studied the slightly different silhouette this gown had, the way it didn't cut so sharply at the waist, the way her body was more column-like in this dress. It wouldn't look right even with her corset, she thought. Something was off.

She wanted to wear the purple gown in which she'd come. After all, there was no rule that her gown had to be white. To be certain, she'd come in a day dress, not a proper wedding gown, but this one just wasn't right. Her chest, her waist... it was all wrong.

"Unfortunately, the soonest she could have it ready is Saturday," said the saleswoman, looking sorrowful as she came back out through the curtain. "I can show you some of our beautiful shorter dresses. They give a nice 50s silhouette."

"You know, I think I have something at home," Victoria said, and she wordlessly made her way back to the dressing room.

* * *

"Ma'am, are you very sure? People will think we are getting in married in costumes." Melbourne hesitated as he buttoned up the back of Victoria's deep purple gown. She glanced over her shoulder at him and scoffed,

"I do not care one bit. I saw a photograph the other day of a couple who got married under the water. They had breathing apparatuses on and everything. And do you know where they were?"

"No, Ma'am. Where?" Melbourne finished buttoning and turned her round, and she smiled,

"Jamaica."

"Yes. Perhaps we can honeymoon in Jamaica." Melbourne tugged at the hem of his Windsor Uniform jacket, wishing he had proper black breeches to match his coat instead of the informal tan ones he'd worn here. At least he'd had good boots on when he'd come, he thought. He'd polished them this morning, working relentlessly with a washcloth until they shone. He adjusted the tails of his coat and tipped his head.

"You're very certain you don't want me in one of their suits, Ma'am? You're certain you don't want to wait until next week and give yourself time to get one of their gowns?"

"I want this dress," Victoria said. She touched at her hair, which she'd pulled back into a sort of twist. It was too short now for anything resembling a style from their time, but she still looked pretty. She hadn't worn any of their makeup today, Melbourne noticed. He touched at her cheek and said,

"I rather wish I had some of my flowers from Brocket Hall for you. Little blossoms for your hair. Something to bunch up for you to hold."

"I do not need flowers. I only need you." Victoria squeezed his hands almost roughly, and he just nodded.

"Yes, Ma'am," he whispered. "You've got me. Perhaps we ought to just stay in our fancy dress and go to the ball tonight to celebrate."

She raised her right arm up and he took it, settling into the old familiar waltz stance he'd used with her so many times. Her eyes shifted down over his Windsor Uniform, and he felt something shift inside of her. She'd barely recognised the man in the wine bar, he knew. She hardly knew him with an iPhone in his hand. But this, just like this, with her in her gown and him in his Windsor Uniform, they were home for just a moment.

"I love you so very much," she whispered, raising her eyes to his. "Please, let's go get married now."

"Yes, Ma'am," he said, letting his arms fall and going over to fetch their passports from the table.

* * *

"Now, William, take Victoria's right hand in yours and repeat after me. I, William, take you, Victoria, to be my wife."

Melbourne swallowed hard, scarcely able to believe that he was marrying his queen. Somehow he managed to say firmly,

"I, William, take you, Victoria, to be my wife."

The rest of the vow was a blur, until finally Melbourne repeated,

"In the presence of God I make this vow."

He'd expected Victoria's voice to tremble like a leaf when she delivered her own vows, but it didn't. She was steady and sure, tipping her head up a little as she repeated,

"To love and to cherish, 'til death do us part, according to God's holy law. In the presence of God, I make this vow."

Little had changed in the Church of England, at least when it came to weddings, so Melbourne knew next to pull the two rings he'd quickly bought the day before from his pocket and hand them to the vicar. The rings were blessed and Melbourne slid the platinum band onto Victoria's finger alongside the pretty diamond ring he'd bought her. His hands were shaking, not because he was afraid, but because he could scarcely contain his happiness. He did not suppose he had been so happy as this in all his many years. His wedding day to Caroline had felt nothing like this. He hadn't been in love, not really. He was so very in love just now. He watched as Victoria slid his sleek golden ring onto his finger, and he listened as she said,

"William, I give you this ring as a sign of our marriage. With my body I honour you, all that I am I give to you, and all that I have I share with you, within the love of God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit."

The minister looked rather triumphant then, and he said, "In the presence of God the witnesses here gathered..." He gestured to the church staff who had agreed to sign off as witnesses, "William and Victoria have given their consent and made their marriage vows to each other. They have declared their marriage by the joining of hands by the giving and receiving of rings. I therefore proclaim that they are husband and wife."

He took their right hands and clasped them together, and Victoria squeezed at Melbourne as the minister said,

"Those whom God has joined together, let no one put asunder."

There was a little bit of organ music then, and the minister murmured some congratulations. They filled out some paperwork with him in the rectory, explaining in vague terms that they had disapproving family, and they made their way slowly from the church.

Then suddenly they were standing on Gloucester Street with cars whizzing by, Melbourne in his Windsor Uniform and Victoria in purple gown, and he felt a little odd. He looked around and realised that he was married to her, that this was his new home and his new life, and he was more conflicted than he'd ever been.

He wanted Victoria. He did not want wine bars or dance clubs or jeans. He stared down at her and read the some conflict on her face. She smiled a little and reminded him,

"We're married now, Lord M."

"Yes, Ma'am," he nodded. He took her hands in his and tried to smile, and then someone passing by said,

"Nice costumes!"

It was just like the first day they'd come, when they'd been fish out of water. But they were too familiar here now. She'd cut her hair short. She had contact information in her iPhone for a woman they'd met at a trivia night. Melbourne had learnt to shave with a disposable razor, to buy Victoria's engagement ring with a credit card and to sign his marriage papers with a Bic pen.

"Please kiss me," Victoria whispered. Melbourne took her cheeks in his hands and bent down, unashamed to kiss her right there on the street. They'd just gotten married, after all.

The sounds around them started to fade, and then it was so quiet that Melbourne wondered if he'd completely lost himself to Victoria's kiss. He breathed her in and then perceived the smell of wood. He heard the ticking of a clock.

He pulled back and opened his eyes, and he found himself standing beside Victoria's desk in the drawing room at Buckingham Palace.

Then, just as swiftly as the vision had come, it was gone. He blinked a few times and asked Victoria,

"Did you... did we just...?"

"Yes," she said in awe. "I flashed back there, just for a moment."

She looked very frightened then, and she insisted, "I do not think I want to celebrate at the costume ball, Lord M. I think perhaps a nice dinner with my husband. Perhaps I shall wear jeans myself."

Melbourne looked around quickly, still confused by how vividly he'd found himself transported. He gave her a nervous little nod and said in an attempt to reassure the both of them,

"You are my wife."

"Yes, Lord M," she agreed. "I am your wife. Now let's go home."

To the flat, she meant. Home. Where they had a television set and she had her copy of _Lolita_ , where the electric kettle boiled up water for bagged tea. Home.

 **Author's Note: So, they're married! Yay! But they're both super conflicted about moving forward in the modern world! Boo! And they both flashed back for a moment at the same time! WTF? Where do they go from here? Hmm... Last update until tomorrow. Promise!**


	16. Chapter 16

Victoria blinked her eyes awake and frowned. The sounds of the cars outside had gone. The little glow of the plug-in nightlight beside their bed was gone. There was only the dull glow of a single candle on the wall.

Then she sat up, very slowly, and realised she was in her bedchamber at Buckingham Palace. Melbourne was not beside her; she was alone with Dash at her feet. Victoria's heart began to pound, and she felt tears well up in her eyes as she whispered,

"No. Not yet. I'm not ready yet."

"Ma'am?"

Victoria blinked again and it was gone. Buckingham Palace and Dash were gone. She was staring down at Melbourne, who looked groggy beside her in their bed on Gloucester Street. He seemed concerned then, and he asked,

"It happened again?"

"Where were you?" Her voice was grave, and he admitted,

"Dover House."

Victoria lay down beside him and curled her body against him, trying to make as much physical contact as she could. This had happened a few times since their wedding two weeks earlier. More than once, they'd found themselves simultaneously and momentarily swept away from this new world and rushed suddenly to the one they'd left behind. It had happened once in a restaurant, and another time in a portrait gallery. Once, they'd been in a Tesco buying shampoo, and then they'd flashed to being at a long dining table, surrounded by conversation.

The flashes happened at irregular intervals and never seemed to go to the same place. It was like having visions, but they were shared, and, frighteningly, Victoria could tell it was real. She had really gone to Buckingham Palace tonight, she could tell. She'd really been there.

"Make love to me," she said desperately, and when Melbourne gave her a confused look, she whispered,

"I need to feel you here. Now. Please."

He seemed nervous and uncomfortable as she slid her hand down his front, and though she began to play with him, he didn't harden at all. He shook his head and squeezed his eyes shut, and he whispered,

"I can't."

"Why not?" Victoria demanded, and Melbourne hissed,

"I don't know why not. I'm sorry. I... do not much feel like it."

"You are afraid," she noted, pulling her hand away, and he asked,

"Aren't you?"

"Of course I am." Victoria shut her eyes for a moment and reminded him, "We are meeting with Oliver and Angela today. Brunch, remember? That silly little combination of breakfast and luncheon that they have."

"That we have," he corrected her, and she repeated,

"We."

They were quiet then, and Victoria dragged her fingers over Melbourne's bare chest. She stared at the diamond ring he'd bought her and the one he'd put on her when he'd become her husband. She would never lose that, she vowed. She would never lose him.

But even as she promised herself that, she could feel herself slipping again, as if her hands were wet and she were trying to hold onto slick rock.

"Lord M," she whispered desperately, but as soon as she sat up, he was gone. Victoria sprang out of her bed in Buckingham Palace, glancing down to see that she was in a short, stretchy pink nightgown from the flat. He was gone. She was alone. Dash was looking at her as though she'd gone mad.

"Lord M," she said again, waiting for the vision to pass. It didn't. She stared at the clock and counted minutes. Two. Five. Fifteen minutes. None of their flashes had ever lasted this long. Something was wrong.

Eventually, out of sheer fear, Victoria went into her dressing room and rummaged around until she found a long, white cotton nightgown. She peeled off her pink nightie and shoved it into the fireplace, watching the material singe and smoke.

Forty-seven minutes.

"Lord M," she said again, shutting her eyes as tightly as she possibly could. She opened them again, trying to hear cars, trying to see electric lights. But all she saw was Dash, standing worriedly at her feet, and her burning nightgown in the fireplace.

* * *

Melbourne paced anxiously outside of her drawing room. It was early, only six-thirty in the morning, and he'd received more than one very strange look coming into the palace. But he just paced, having requested an audience and insisting that it was an emergency.

Finally the drawing room door opened, and the Baroness Lehzen came out and said firmly,

"Her Majesty is in no condition to meet with the Prime Minister this morning, I'm afraid."

"Have you even told her that I am here?" Melbourne snapped, and Lehzen looked deeply offended.

"No," she admitted. "Her Majesty is -"

"Please tell her that I have come to see her," Melbourne insisted. "I think you will see some measure of improvement in her if she knows I have come."

"Well, I admire your confidence, Lord Melbourne." Lehzen hesitated. "She does not... look quite herself."

"The hair, you mean," Melbourne said dismissively, and Lehzen furrowed her thick brows. Melbourne realised he ought not to have said anything, and he licked his lip as he said, "She had mentioned yesterday that she meant to cut it. I thought she was joking."

"It is no joke, I'm afraid," Lehzen said. "I will tell her you are here."

Ten minutes later, Mr Penge opened the drawing room door and called,

"The Right Honourable Lord Melbourne."

Melbourne stepped into the drawing room and felt his heart sink. Victoria looked like she'd been crying all night. She probably had been, he reckoned. They'd put a strange lace cap on her head and had pulled her hair back into it, and her face was red and puffy and tired. He descended to one knee and reached for her right hand, his eyes flicking to the wedding rings on her left on. He took his time kissing her hand, holding it for a moment before rising.

"We could not stay there forever, Ma'am," he whispered. "Whatever force sent us there... we learnt quite a lot, didn't we? We were married there. I think, perhaps, we are still married here. That wedding already happened."

Victoria blinked, looking shocked, and she asked quietly,

"Why were tortured like that? To be given that world twice and have it taken away? They told me this morning that there is a ball tonight to honour my Uncle Leopold. He will not give up on Albert, they said. But I am already married."

"I will be your companion here," Melbourne insisted. He shook his head and said, "I do not care if it topples my ministry, or if there is scandal for it. I am your husband eternally, and here I will at least be your companion."

"We'll miss brunch," Victoria said in a numb voice. "Oliver and Angela. They'll think we don't like them. She'll send me a text message and I won't answer, and she will think we are very rude."

"Yes, she probably will," Melbourne nodded. Victoria walked over to the window and touched at the lace day cap they'd put on her head.

"Miss Skerrett was utterly horrified by my hair. Susie, the girl who cut it... she called it the 'big chop.' They donated my hair to make wigs. Someone many years from now is wearing a wig made from my hair."

"Victoria." Melbourne joined her at the window, staring down at the gardens. Suddenly he had a rather wild idea, something to settle them back in this time and place, and he murmured, "Will you ride out with me, Ma'am?"

"All right," she said blankly.

It had been so many weeks since they'd done that. They hadn't been together on horseback since before the first time they'd gone forward. So much had happened since then. As Melbourne mounted his horse and watched Victoria helped up into hers, he could suddenly see her in the dance club where he'd first said he loved her. He could feel her swaying above him, could smell the rubbing alcohol in the clinic where they'd put a contraceptive device into her arm.

"Is it still there?" When she looked a little confused, he urged his horse forward and specified, "The arm implant. Is it still there?"

"Yes," she whispered. "I only hope they don't notice it when they bathe me. I do not want to be bathed by others. I quite liked the smell of that shampoo we bought last."

"It was a bit feminine for my taste," Melbourne smirked, but then he realised what had been torn away from them, and his eyes seared like fire. He measured his words carefully and finally said, "I shall forever be grateful for it. Here, I would never have become yours, Ma'am, and you never would have become mine. It would have been impossible for that process to unfold. But the process did unfold somewhere else, and now we have been married for weeks, and there is nothing anyone here can do it about it."

"So I will be like Elizabeth," Victoria suggested, staring at him for a moment. "And what of the history we read, Lord M? They said you had a stroke, that you were ill and then died."

He shrugged a little and said, "Every man dies, Ma'am. Something tells me I shall be in much better health if I am allowed to have you."

"How will I sleep with you at nights?" Victoria asked, and Melbourne tipped his head.

"You know, perhaps there is something to be learnt, Ma'am, from the way those people treated women. That female barrister at the wine club... she was not prohibited from practising law just because of her sex. And you are the reigning monarch of this country."

"What is your point?" Victoria asked. Melbourne stared ahead and told her,

"Many kings have taken mistresses in an official capacity. Countless others have taken mistresses in an unofficial capacity. They have taken women into their bedrooms, and no one has questioned it. Perhaps you ought to simply do it, scandal be damned."

"They will hiss at me at the opera and make cartoons of me in the newspaper," Victoria pointed out, and Melbourne smiled darkly, thinking of Caroline's affair with Lord Byron.

"I know all of that very well indeed, Ma'am. The answer is simple. Don't read the newspapers."

* * *

"Uncle Leopold, I know I was too cross about this the other day, but I mean to make it very clear now... I will not be marrying."

Leopold gave his niece a very solemn look and turned his eyes over to Lord Melbourne.

"It is your Prime Minister, is it?"

"Yes, it is," Victoria nodded. "I have made my choice."

"That is not a choice you can make, Victoria," Leopold insisted. "He is not available for you -"

"Uncle, I have made my choice," Victoria said firmly. "I am his, and he is mine, and that really is very much the end of it."

Leopold looked almost devastated as he said desperately, "He is your Prime Minister. His past is mired with scandal. He is old enough to be your father twice over."

"And he is my companion," Victoria said impulsively. When Leopold frowned and opened his mouth, Victoria glanced down to her hand. "I will hear no more about it, Uncle Leopold. From you or from anyone else."

"Very well. I think I shall go dance with your mother," Leopold said. "I have missed my dear sister, and we have much to discuss."

"I'm sure you do," Victoria said, nearly rolling her eyes. Leopold walked away then, and after a moment, Melbourne came up to her, looking almost impossibly handsome in a formal coat. She remembered how he'd looked in his Windsor Uniform the day she'd married him, and she found herself smiling a little at him.

"Your Majesty, would you do me the immeasurable honour of dancing with me?" He held out his hand, and Victoria nodded as she let him sweep her into a waltz. This felt right, she thought suddenly. Dancing with him like this felt good. It felt even better than the thudding dance club, because she'd surrendered entirely to the notion that she would not give him up here. She would simply refuse, and she would take whatever consequences she must in order to keep him.

They were home, and he was hers, and that was all that mattered.

"Your rings are pretty in the candlelight," he said quietly. "They looked pretty in the shop; I think they used special lighting to make the diamonds glitter even more. But here... here, Victoria, they look very, very pretty."

"Yes, they do," she agreed. "I told my uncle that you are my companion and that I will not argue about it."

"Good." He tightened his hand on her back and flicked his eyes up behind her, and then he said with a crooked little smile, "The Duchess of Kent is trying to kill me with her eyes right now."

"Let her try," Victoria said. "I want you to stay the night tonight."

He tipped his head. "Perhaps we ought to give it a little time to -"

"No, I think I would like for you to stay the night tonight," Victoria said. "You may wait in my drawing room until I dismiss my dressers and send Lehzen to bed, and then I shall come fetch you, and you will be inside of me again."

He looked like he wanted to protest, like he wanted to remind her of what an absurd and impossible idea it was. But then he nodded and looked completely resigned to his fat, and he murmured,

"Yes, Ma'am. I shall stay the night."

"Thirteen," Victoria said, and he shook his head in confusion.

"Thirteen what, Ma'am?"

"Manchester United won the Premier League Title thirteen times. And it is 1839, and I am the queen, and you are my husband. All of those are true, aren't they?"

"Yes, Ma'am," Melbourne nodded. "All of those things are true."

 **Author's Note: So it seems as though the force that sent them forward is indeed some sort of ethereal Vicbourne shipper who basically wanted to shove them together in a way that their original existence wouldn't allow them to do. But 1839 sensibilities surround them, and surely Leopold's response will be among the milder they'll receive. Lord M says not to read the newspapers, but surely things will get a little cruel towards the Harlot Queen and her sorcerer of a prime minister, yes? Oh, and before any of that... he's spending the night. ;)**


	17. Chapter 17

Melbourne stared into the flickering flames that licked the soot-stained fireplace in Victoria's drawing room, and he blinked slowly. He had a vivid memory all of a sudden, a recollection of Victoria in a shoe shop, marveling at the sheer height of the pointy heels she had on.

"Look, Lord M," she'd giggled, gleeful as a child. "I'm almost normal size in these ones!"

He'd smiled at her and tipped his head and told her that perhaps she ought to try walking in them before she celebrated them so heartily. She'd staggered a little and he'd caught her, and he'd suggested some of the flatter shoes on offer.

"Lord Melbourne."

He looked up from the fireplace and slowly rose from where he sat.

"Baroness Lehzen," he said with feigned politeness, reading the seething rage upon the face of the woman who had tended to Victoria for years. She seized her skirts in her hands and hurried across the drawing room, and she hissed,

"Your intentions are plain, Lord Melbourne. You are manipulating the Queen to advance yourself."

He frowned and calmly shook his head. "I assure you I am not."

Lehzen narrowed her eyes and spat, "She is little more than a girl. She does not know better."

Melbourne raised his eyebrows and countered, "I think, Baroness, that you give Her Majesty far too little credit."

He could see Victoria in his mind then, standing before him in a slinky black dress, asserting for herself that she wanted him, looking powerful in her seduction, and he squared his jaw as he told Lehzen,

"The Queen has demonstrated many times that she is quite capable of making her own decisions."

"If you had an ordinary mistress, Lord Melbourne, you could make your bastards disappear. But the Queen does not have such a luxury, as a woman. You will destroy her." Lehzen looked very worried then, and Melbourne tried to warm his voice a little as he promised,

"That will not be a concern, Baroness."

Lehzen looked extremely sceptical and turned her eyes back toward the Queen's private chambers. She hugged her shawl more tightly around herself and demanded,

"Those new rings on her finger - the ones she refuses to remove. Where did she get them, Lord Melbourne?"

"I bought them for her," he said simply, and Lehzen scoffed.

"And what, precisely, do they mean?"

"That is a matter for Her Majesty and myself, I should think," Melbourne answered. Lehzen looked mildly disgusted then.

"How very shameless you are, for such a shameful man. Your entire life has been shameful, and now you spread that shame to your monarch like a rat with the Plague."

Decades earlier, words like that might have wounded Melbourne a little, but he'd long learnt to ignore the scorn of those around him. So he just plastered a sad little smile on his face and bowed his head.

"Goodnight, Baroness."

She shook her head and flounced away, her skirts swishing wildly as she practically dashed to her own room. Melbourne was left standing there, his stomach fluttering with unease as memories of the Victoria he'd married mingled with the mess they were making here. He folded his hands behind his back and waited, knowing that she would come for him soon enough.

It did not take long. After a moment, Victoria stood in the far doorway of the drawing room, wearing nothing but a long, wispy nightgown that was somehow just as alluring as the tiny silky things she'd had in the future. She looked angelic, even with her shorter hair that hung around her face as if poor Miss Skerrett had given up on it entirely. Victoria said nothing; she just stood there like a ghost, and for a moment, Melbourne wondered if she were real or not. He finally approached her, and he contemplated genuflecting like he was meant to do. But Victoria silently reached for his hand and pulled him toward her rooms, and he just followed.

* * *

"I have never been in here," Melbourne noted as Victoria shut her bedroom door behind him. He glanced around and said almost nervously, "Weeks and weeks spent with you in a hotel, in a flat, and yet I have never once been in these particular chambers."

"Well, you weren't allowed," Victoria said primly, "but we shall make our own rules now."

He couldn't help smiling a little at that, and he told her, "The Baroness Lehzen was not at all pleased with me."

"I heard her," Victoria nodded. Melbourne asked quietly,

"Is this what you really want, Ma'am? Me? If we go much farther, there will be no turning back."

"I am already your wife," Victoria said, raising her brows. "Of course there is no turning back."

His eyes burned a little at that, and he nodded silently. She stepped up to him and began to methodically undress him, and for some reason he did not help her. It was entrancing, the way her hands pushed off his jacket, the way his fingers flew down his waistcoat and then his shirt. She pulled clumsily at his cravat and tossed it aside, and by the time her hands reached his breeches, he was already entirely hard. She liked that, he could tell. She toyed with his cock through the fabric of his breeches as her cheeks flushed, and she whispered,

"I want Lehzen to hear me all the way from her room."

Melbourne choked out a laugh and replied, "That seems a bit reckless, Ma'am."

"This entire endeavour is reckless," Victoria insisted. She unbuttoned his breeches and pulled him out, and she whispered, "Make me scream, Lord M."

He couldn't breathe then, and as soon as he'd wriggled out of his breeches and underwear and shoes, he yanked Victoria's nightgown up and over her head and dragged her over to her bed. He practically shoved her up onto the mattress, stalking after her like a predator in search of prey. He hovered over her and immediately bent down to attack her neck, deciding for some wild reason that he wanted to leave marks on her. He wanted people to see purple bruises on the queen's neck. That was indeed reckless, he thought, and then he realised he didn't care anymore. He couldn't. Not after slithering about with her in a dark dance club, both of them drunk and wanting each other. Not after nights with their hands laced together, with her cradled against his body. Not after laughing with her, joking with her, staring at her. He had no room left in his soul to care, so he put marks on her. She cried out at the way he sucked and bit, and her back immediately arched against him. He reached to fondle her breast roughly, pinching her nipple until she yelped and massaging her flesh as she moaned.

She'd told him to make her scream, so he would.

He moved his mouth to hers and conquered her there, dragging his tongue over the roof of her mouth and sucking hard on her tongue. Then he pulled his lips down over her chin and throat and settled on her other breast, latching his mouth around her and sucking so hard that Victoria finally did it. She screamed, a real visceral yell, a mix of pleasure and pain. Melbourne found himself pushing one finger after another into her body until he had three of them buried inside of her, and he began to twist and thrust them. He worked hard on her nub with his thumb, and as he sat up a little and stared down at her, Victoria clutched her cut hair and shrieked,

"Oh, Lord M!"

Lehzen would hear that, he thought, and he smirked a little. They would ruin everything, but he couldn't care. All he could feel was the way she was coming around his fingers, the way she was writhing and bucking against him, the way she was crying her nickname for him over and over until her voice was hoarse.

He turned her body around until she was on her hands and knees, and she moaned with want as he lined himself up behind her. He pushed in and just held the feeling for a moment, soaking in the sensation of her sheathed around him in the ultimate embrace. His hands shook on her hips, and he carefully stroked her backside. For a moment he considered spanking her, but he could not bring himself to strike her, so instead he just dragged his fingertips over her skin. She twisted her hips and thrust herself backward, and she begged him,

"Please."

"Please what, Ma'am?" His voice was dry and quiet, but hers was insistent as she whined,

"Make me scream, Lord M."

"Again?" He bent down and moved her hair aside, pressing his lips to the angry welt he'd left on her neck. "I already made you scream, Ma'am."

"Again," she said petulantly. "Stop torturing me!"

He laughed a little and kissed her between her shoulder blades. "All right. I'm sorry."

He started to push his hips, to sway and cycle against her, but he could tell she wanted more. She wanted it viciously; she wanted it until it hurt. He knew why. When they'd first left this world, they'd both harboured feelings for the other. But they were not allowed to act upon those feelings. They'd both known that. Then they'd run away to the future - on accident - and they'd allowed themselves to love the other, and they'd married. And here there was Baroness Lehzen, and there would be newspapers and the scandalised public, but it was as she'd said. There was no turning back. He was her husband. He would have her, here or in the future or anywhere he damned well pleased.

He thrashed against her then, shoving her so hard against the wooden headboard that he found himself frantically apologising. She just groaned, and as his hips quickened even more, as his thrusts grew deeper, she began to wail desperately. He reached around her and played with the button of flesh that drove her mad, and he felt her start to tighten beneath him.

"Again," he whispered breathlessly. "Finish again for me, Ma'am."

She shrieked and pounded the mattress when she did, and it was enough to send Melbourne's own climax rocking through him. His veins were on fire for a moment; his head was floating somewhere else. It was explosive, like nothing he'd ever felt in his entire life, and it lasted longer than he could ever recall a climax lasting. He trembled where he knelt behind her, his cock slowly going soft and sliding from Victoria's body as he caught his breath. He was thirsty, he thought distantly. She was probably even thirstier, after all that yelling.

"Thank heaven for the Community Contraception Clinic," Victoria mumbled into her pillow, and Melbourne barked a little laugh in reply. He dragged his wrist over his sweaty forehead and lay beside her, both of them a complete mess, and he murmured,

"I suppose the poor Baroness heard a great deal of that, Ma'am."

"Good," she said stubbornly. "I have made my choice."

Melbourne tipped his head to her and pointed out, "I told her that I would not put a child on you. She will certainly draw a different conclusion. She knows nothing of arm implants."

"I shall prove her wrong by simply not being with child," Victoria said bitterly. She grabbed at a pillow beside her then and tossed it rather angrily onto the mattress. "I was crafting a life with you, Lord M. With my husband. I will not go back."

"We've already come back, Ma'am," he pointed out, and she glared.

"You know very well what I mean."

"Yes." He reached for her neck and stroked at the marks he'd left, and he sighed, "Once upon a time, I was a very careful man."

"And have I made you careless, Lord M?" Victoria asked. "Have I made you reckless?"

"Yes," he said honestly, "but only because I love you, Ma'am, and I can no longer deny it. Do you know... before we left for the first time, I used to lie in Dover House and fantasise about you on your wedding day? You'd look beautiful, I knew, but it was never me beside you. I already loved you so ferociously, but I could not allow myself that particular fantasy. It was such a ludicrous notion, such an impossible thought, and so all I imagined was gazing upon you and admiring you."

He reached for her left hand and rubbed at her rings, and he stared up at the ceiling.

"You're right, Ma'am," he whispered. "There is no turning back. I still have no idea what force or person or idea sent us forward, but I find I no longer care. All that matters is that I allowed myself to love you there. I allowed myself to be loved by you there. We learnt to be defiant there, to be free there. And if we brought all of that back with us, then perhaps that was the entire point. There is no turning back. You will have bruises on your neck tomorrow; I apologise."

She smiled a little beside him, grazing her knuckles over her neck, and she whispered,

"Goodnight, Lord M."

 **Author's Note: Whew! So it's like he said - they learned to be almost different people in the future, or at least to allow themselves a different relationship, and the 1839 world is just going to have to deal with that. But how vehement will the backlash be, and will Victoria and Lord M be able to stay in their respective positions among the scandal? Thanks for reading - please do leave a comment if you get a chance. Thanks!**


	18. Chapter 18

"Drina. You have utterly lost your mind!" The Duchess of Kent came storming into Victoria's library, entirely unannounced, and Victoria set down the volume of Shakespeare she'd been reading. She stayed sitting, unwilling to homour her mother's hysteria, and she looked around slowly.

"I do not think I have, Mama. I feel quite sane."

"Drina!" The Duchess hissed, pacing frantically before the chair where Victoria sat. She threw her arms up and said, "The people of this country expect their queen to find a good husband to give her good children. You are meant to make a royal family the British people can be proud of!"

"Actually, I am meant to be queen, which I am perfectly capable of doing without a husband or children," Victoria corrected her. "Or have you never heard of Queen Elizabeth, Mama?"

"Of course I have heard of Queen Elizabeth, but you are Queen Victoria, and the people want an heir," the Duchess hissed. Victoria raised her eyebrows.

"I did not know you were so very well acquainted with the wishes of the ordinary people, Mama."

"Lord Melbourne is disreputable. He was completely shamed by his wife. He was accused of criminal conversation with a married woman! And he is your Prime Minister, Drina. He is not royal, he is not... you can not..."

"I can, and I am, and I shall continue to do so," Victoria said. She had no idea from where she'd mustered this calm. Perhaps she had learnt it in the future. She'd gained a different confidence there, she knew. The Duchess came over and picked a little at Victoria's hair, and she said morosely,

"They told me you took scissors to your own hair. Why would you do such a thing? You know they will call you mad now. Cutting your own hair, engaging in a brazen affair with your Prime Minister. They will drag you from the throne."

Victoria kept her face steady and said, "I am his, and he is mine. There will be no further discussion on the matter."

The Duchess' eyes flared. "There will be discussion as long as you -"

"Mama, it is not my desire to send you away from Court," Victoria said simply, turning her eyes to the window. The Duchess was silent then, but out of the corner of her eye, Victoria could see her shaking where she stood.

"I am terrified for you, Drina," she whispered finally. "I have no desire to see you go down in flames."

Victoria lost her calm then. She whirled her face back and said, "You and Sir John constructed a system designed explicitly so that you could see me go down in flames. You think I do not know that you and Sir John schemed to put you in as regent? To prove me unworthy, to assert that I was incompetent. For years and years, Mama, you tried to train to me fail. Lord Melbourne, for any flaw he may have, loves me with a power you will never understand, and he would burn himself in hellfire before he would see me destroyed."

"Perhaps he will," the Duchess nodded. "Hellfire does seem his fate. And yours."

"You will go to Kensington Palace, Mama, and you will stay there until summoned back to Court." Victoria turned her face away again.

"Do not do this, Drina," whispered the Duchess, but Victoria just sighed slowly and murmured,

"You have our permission to withdraw, Duchess."

* * *

"You told me not to read the newspapers," Victoria said, and Melbourne threw up an eyebrow.

"I meant it, Ma'am."

"I did not listen, I'm afraid." Victoria cleared her throat a little and pulled out a newspaper from the chair beside her. She was eating breakfast with Melbourne, and the paper was from the day before, but she opened it just the same and muttered, "Servants make poor secret-keepers, it would seem. Although I would not put it past my mother to have notified everyone she could."

Victoria handed the newspaper to Melbourne, who reticently flicked his eyes over the little column. He read aloud quietly.

"There is word that Her Majesty Queen Victoria is engaged in shameless and ongoing criminal conversation with the Prime Minister himself. One might only pray that such disgrace is not happening in the Palace and that the dignity of the Monarchy and the Government might be maintained."

He set the newspaper down and cleared his throat.

"I'll be pushed out of power soon enough. With the next vote, I assume. But there is nothing they can do to you. They can hardly go appointing regents just because they do not care for your private behaviour."

"I want you to marry me," Victoria said simply, and Melbourne frowned.

"We are already married, Ma'am."

"Here, I mean. So that all is documented properly. In private, but documented." Victoria studied Melbourne's green eyes, which seemed to be calculating quickly.

"The Privy Council would never agree."

"Would they prefer a crisis over simply granting consent?" Victoria asked, and Melbourne tipped his head. He seemed to be thinking hard, and he huffed a sigh.

"I will meet with the Duke of Wellington," he said. "He is a Tory and wields enough influence to sway his party members in the House and on the Council. If I can only get him on my side... our side... perhaps there is some hope."

"I will not make them happy no matter what comes next," Victoria said, sipping from her tea, "but I think catastrophe might at least be avoided with some compromise. You are a seasoned statesman, Lord M. Be a statesman now."

* * *

"You wish to marry the Queen of England." The Duke of Wellington stared in disbelief at Melbourne and scoffed, staring at the window in the great hall of Dover House. "Then the rumours are true, and you have bewitched our vulnerable young monarch, Melbourne."

"Our affection is mutual, Sir, and sincere," Melbourne said quietly. He needed to be contrite, he knew. He softened his voice a little and added, "It is already too far gone to... to end it. She will not marry anyone else, I can promise that."

"Because you have seen to it," the Duke said accusingly, and Melbourne shook his head and said desperately,

"Because love, as silly as it sounds, does indeed exist in this world. I defy you to tear this queen from the man she loves, the man who loves her, and demand that she marry some foreign prince. You won't get your way; you'll get a Constitutional crisis."

"Is that a threat?" The Duke seemed angry now, but Melbourne shook his head and said,

"It is simply reality. I ask for nothing for myself. I do not ask to be on the Privy Council, nor the Order of the Garter, nor to be named Prince Consort. I ask for no monetary allowance. I only ask for her. I only ask that I be allowed her, and that she be allowed me. That is all."

"That is asking quite a great deal, Lord Melbourne," the Duke of Wellington said severely. He folded his hands behind his back and said, "You remember when I married my wife Kitty."

"I do, Sir," Melbourne nodded, and Wellington said,

"It took me getting a new title, a new position, in order for her family to consent to her marrying me. And I loved her so very much. Or so I thought. We were miserable, utterly miserable, and we both found sweeter company in other beds. It is far better that the queen be matched with a husband for political reasons, not because of the fleeting inclinations of her young heart."

"And what of my old heart, Sir?" Melbourne asked. The Duke turned his face from the window and frowned.

"Has she made you entirely soft, man?"

"Perhaps she has," Melbourne nodded. "I do not much care. You can put Robert Peel in as Prime Minister. She will ask him to form a government. She will do it willingly. I ask for nothing, Sir, and neither does she. Nothing except one another."

The Duke shut his eyes and sighed, "She will not agree to anyone else, you say. She will keep you on as her illicit companion. The people will cry out that she be forced from the throne, that you be tried with treason. And all of this you are willing to risk if the Privy Council denies you?"

Melbourne smiled sadly and nodded. "All of that and more, I think."

"You're a damned fool, Melbourne, letting a little girl twist your soul like this," Wellington said darkly, "but it seems you leave your fellow statesmen little choice. The monarchy has been weak for some time; there are murmurs of political insurrections all over the Continent. We need stability, even with a queen as unstable as the one we have. I need a promise from you, and I need you to mean it."

Melbourne just nodded silently, unsure of what he was about to agree to do. The Duke tightened his lips and said firmly,

"Conduct yourself with dignity as her husband. Help her be regal. The people need her to be regal, not scandalous. Put an heir on her and stay quietly to the side with your back straight and your eyes down."

Melbourne turned up half his mouth and dared to ask, "So you will speak with the Tories?"

"I will speak to the entire Privy Council," Wellington nodded, "I have no choice, it seems. I will get them to agree, Melbourne, because I am an old man and I have no wish to die among the smouldering remains of my country's monarchy. Good day to you."

"Good day, Sir," Melbourne nodded. The Duke turned and left without another word, and Melbourne felt his heart speed up a little in his chest. He blinked as he remembered the way he and Victoria had said their vows, him in his Windsor Uniform and her in her deep purple dress. They were already married, but no one here knew that. The two of them would never have fought for marriage in this time, not before going forward. They would have seen it as impossible. But now, as Melbourne stood alone in Dover House, the taste of Victoria fresh on his lips from the kisses he'd given her this morning, he realised that a great deal more was possible than he'd ever believed.

 **Author's Note: So, if they're allowed to marry (remarry?) in this time, will they finally find their happiness and write their own history? There are about five chapters remaining in this story, so if you're still reading, THANK YOU! :)**


	19. Chapter 19

_The music was so loud, pulsing like a heartbeat as Victoria instinctively moved against Melbourne. It smelled like sweat in here, like the swarm of humanity that had gathered to dance, but he smelled so good, like leather and cologne. She breathed him in and looked up to see him whisper something. She couldn't make out what he'd said, so she furrowed her brow and shook her head. His face went serious then, and he leaned down and put his lips beside her ear._

" _I am in love with you."_

 _He did not pull away. Victoria breathed against his cheek, and the music seemed louder than ever._

She blinked her eyes open and felt Dash squirm beside her, and she sighed as she realised it had been nothing but a dream. It was just a memory of a time that had not yet come to pass, an experience she'd already had that could never be again.

Victoria stared at the ceiling of her bedchamber and pet Dash absently. He was lethargic these days, not as playful as he'd once been. Suddenly Victoria could empathise.

"Your Majesty?" There was a knock on her door after a long while, and Lehzen's voice called, "Your Majesty, it is nearly nine."

"I'm coming," she said, not loudly enough for Lehzen to hear. A half hour later, she was dressed in a solemn green gown and seated in her dressing room as Miss Skerrett made a frustrated sound behind her.

"You are struggling with it," Victoria noted, and Miss Skerrett insisted,

"No, Ma'am. It's... it's just a bit more difficult to pin, that's all. It will grow back out in time. I shall make it lovely just the same."

"I'm sorry," Victoria whispered. Miss Skerrett looked a little concerned in the mirror as she jabbed a pin into the twist she'd made of Victoria's hair.

"May I ask, Ma'am, why it is that you wanted to cut it?"

"I'm afraid I do not have a very good reason," Victoria said simply. Miss Skerrett fought with her hair for another ten minutes, and then finally she pulled away and huffed,

"Perhaps a tiara today, Ma'am? Just to... you know, add some elegance?"

Victoria nodded silently, and she watched as Miss Skerrett arranged a small diamond tiara on her head. She would have looked silly in the other time wearing this, she thought. She ought to be glad that she was here, where she was queen and her beautiful crowns and tiaras were not only accepted but expected. But Victoria just wanted to whip the tiara off and toss it to the ground. Somehow she managed to thank Miss Skerrett and to walk numbly out toward breakfast.

* * *

"The Right Honourable Lord Melbourne."

He passed into the dining room to see Victoria standing there waiting, her right hand already extended limply. Melbourne dipped to one knee and planted a swift kiss upon Victoria's hand, but when he stood, he could see that something had broken inside of her. Her lovely blue eyes seemed empty, and she lacked the little smile with which she usually greeted him. Melbourne forced his own lips up and said,

"Good morning, Ma'am."

"When will we know about the Privy Council?" Victoria asked without pretense. Melbourne hesitated and then admitted,

"Wellington will propose the idea to them next week."

"Next week," she sounded irritated, and Melbourne clarified,

"Some of the members of the Council are out of London at the moment. Wellington has summoned them back, I believe, but... it won't be long. I do think they will give permission, Ma'am, despite any reservations they may hold. They know you won't take no for an answer, not really. Better to bury a scandal before it becomes a crisis. They will consent. Is that what is concerning you?"

Victoria turned her face away and said quietly,

"I am haunted by the idea of jeans, by the smell and taste of Nando's, by the feeling of walking down the street holding your hand without a single person recognising me. Riding in Black Cabs. Trying and failing to cook for you. Wearing a bra. Being free."

Melbourne rubbed at his forehead and pointed out, "You seemed uneasy there, Ma'am, toward the end."

"I thought I was homesick," she said. "I missed Dash. But he doesn't want to play anymore."

Melbourne reached for her hands and reminded her, "This is your real life. We are together here. We will be married here, and you will be the queen you were meant to be, and -"

"I think I was meant to live in a flat on Gloucester Street," Victoria said. Melbourne gnawed hard on his lip and reached into his coat, pulling out a small book - _Lolita_ by Nabokov.

"I found this on my desk at Dover House this morning," he told her. "Don't worry; I've already opened it and it doesn't do anything. It's just a book. A souvenir, I suppose."

"What a cruel souvenir," Victoria said, taking the book and staring at it. "I shall read it again soon. It is a strangely and wondrous thing to read."

Melbourne desperately wanted to change the subject, so he asked,

"The weather is fine. Will you ride out today?"

"No," she said, and she left it at that. Melbourne frowned and swallowed hard.

"Well... believe it or not, Ma'am, I am still the prime minister of this country, and as a consequence, I have actual work to do today. It's been some time, admittedly, since I have put my nose to the grindstone with politics. I think I will greatly enjoy..."

He trailed off then, because she'd know he was lying. He was tired of political work, and she knew that. He watched her stare solemnly out the window, and he reached to rub a little at her back.

"Shall I see you at dinner, Ma'am?"

"If you'd like to come," she nodded. Melbourne straightened his back and nodded.

"Then I shall see you at dinner. Good day, Ma'am."

* * *

"Good day, Lord Melbourne," she said quietly, not looking away from the window as Melbourne bowed and walked from the room.

Victoria stared at her plate of duck and remembered ordering it in the restaurant near the theatre with Melbourne. She sighed as she thought of the biography she'd read of him on the iPhone. He'd had a stroke and had died in 1848. Would that still happen here? Even if she married him, she still might lose him.

Suddenly she wondered if Angela and Oliver had had brunch without them.

"Your Majesty?"

She looked up to see an entire dining room table of people staring at her. Her ladies were here, along with a few of their husbands, and Lord Melbourne, of course. The Duchess of Kent was conspicuously absent, having been banished from court for the time being. Victoria wondered why they were all staring, and then Melbourne said carefully,

"Are you not hungry, Ma'am?"

"Oh. I'm sorry." They couldn't eat until she did. She picked up her knife and fork and forced a bite of duck into her mouth, and everyone around the table rushed to pick up their own cutlery. Victoria realised then that she'd probably left them sitting in silence for quite some time, and Melbourne seemed to confirm this with the concerned look in his eye.

Victoria spoke to no one during dinner, which was very rude of her, but she did not care. She was preoccupied with the idea of losing Melbourne here, with the idea that the doctors in the future might have had some way to keep her with him for longer. She had been his wife there in the future, but here it was uncertain if she'd really be allowed to keep him. She could refuse to give him up, but he might be taken just the same.

After dinner, Victoria walked quickly from the dining room without saying goodnight to anyone. That was rude, too, she knew. She still did not care. As she walked briskly down the corridor toward her own chambers, she heard Melbourne's voice behind her.

"Your Majesty."

She stopped and turned slowly round, preparing to send him back to Dover House, but Melbourne said carefully,

"I received a message from the Duke of Wellington this afternoon, Ma'am."

It had been six days since they'd last discussed this matter, and in all that time, Victoria had not had Melbourne in her bed. She'd barely spoken in a week, and she knew that everyone was whispering. The queen had fallen into a deep melancholy over the uncertainty regarding Melbourne. That was what everyone was saying. They were not exactly wrong.

"And what did the Duke of Wellington say?" Victoria asked Melbourne. He took a few steps toward her and said,

"He says that when you gather the Privy Council and ask their permission to marry me, the Council will approve."

Victoria's heart sped up a little, and she nodded. "That is good news."

Melbourne frowned. "I admit, Victoria, that I thought perhaps you might be a bit more happy about it. I wish with all my heart that I could help you find joy again."

"I am already married to you," she reminded him. "It will be pleasant to say the vows again. Goodnight, Lord M."

She turned to go, and he reached quickly for her wrist. He shook his head desperately and said,

"Please let me stay tonight. You worry me."

"I worry you?" Victoria scoffed and shook her head. "I have been tortured. Taunted with two worlds, two lives, two fates. I will never belong anywhere again. Even if we went back there, Lord M, it would never be real. It would never be ours. And here, I fear losing you, and I miss the memories we made."

"Oh, Victoria," Melbourne whispered, "There are so very many more memories to be made here."

She laced her fingers through his, wishing she weren't wearing a glove so that she could feel his skin properly, and she nodded.

"Stay," she said finally. "Come to bed with me."

"Yes, Ma'am." He followed her into her drawing room, and they walked silently into her bedroom. She would need to be undressed, and he would shamelessly wait for her on her bed. They were both long past caring about the judgment of others. Victoria opened the bedchamber door and froze when she saw a thick book on her bed.

 _Kings and Queens of the United Kingdom_.

"Don't pick it up," Melbourne warned her. "Wait."

He approached the book and stared at it, and Victoria nodded at him as he finally reached for it. He seemed to hold his breath before opening it, and Victoria fully expected to be rocketed into the future again like they'd been before. But instead, all she got was an open book.

"Oxford University Press, 1995," read Melbourne, and he flipped the page until he got to the table of contents. He dragged his finger over a line and then turned two-thirds of the way through the book, and she could see that the chapter was entitled _Queen Victoria_. Melbourne cleared his throat and read one of the paragraphs.

" _In 1839, amid scandal surrounding their relationship, Victoria married her prime minister, William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne. By all accounts, their marriage was happy, but after five childless years, rumours abounded of Melbourne being impotent from the mild stroke he suffered in 1841. However, Melbourne fully recovered, and the rumours were silenced when Victoria gave birth in 1844 to a daughter, and six more children followed. Her children and grandchildren married into royal families all over Europe. Melbourne, who was named Prince Consort in 1851, lived to be ninety-seven years of age. Victoria's reign of sixty-three years was the longest in history at the time of her death."_

Melbourne shut the book quietly and set it down, and Victoria felt a sudden spike of relief go through her. She would not lose him. She would keep him for a very long time. She would have years alone with him, and then they would have a family together. Her reign would be long and happy. Silent tears began to stream down her cheeks, and she whispered,

"I shall never forget the bras or the jeans, Lord M, and I'm sure we were missed at brunch. But you are right. Our life is here."

"Yes." He took her face in his hands and kissed her delicately. "Our life is here, Victoria, and we will be together, and we will be happy. And this life, the one we will make here, is one we could have never had without going forward."

Victoria wanted to answer, but she found herself utterly drowning in his kiss. For the first time in a good long while, she did not mind being lost.

~ THE END ~

 **Author's Note: The loose ends of this story wrapped themselves up a bit more quickly than I'd anticipated, but I do hope you've enjoyed this story! I promise to begin another Vicbourne fic shortly, and I hope you'll join me for it.**


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